


Whispers in the Dark

by h0ax



Category: Splatoon
Genre: (Which means there will be spoilers), Blood and Injury, Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Multi, Nudity, Post-Octo Expansion DLC, Some simple misunderstandings of language, Strong Language, TEN THOUSAND (and eight) WORDS IN A SINGLE CHAPTER!, Tags will be updated as the story progresses, Thus far the story contains:, a boatload of worldbuilding in the newest chapter, and a glimpse into Three's life pre-OctEx!, bathtub discussions, gratuitous use of cyrillic alphabet, vague mentions of emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-07-02 07:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15791847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ax/pseuds/h0ax
Summary: (Formerly "To Hurt, To Heal")“You two both went through a lot down there. Take a couple weeks off, relax, recover. Help her get adjusted to Inkopolis life.” The Cap’n’s orders were clear enough, but that didn’t make them easy to follow.—Agent Three finds himself negotiating a rapidly expanding social circle that threatens to dig up parts of his past he’d left long behind; Agent Eight learns to navigate surface life while pondering over memories she isn’t quite sure are hers; and sleep brings echos of the underground that neither are prepared to handle.





	1. Headache

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfiction in at least four years, and I’m writing it about an expansion for a game I’ve not played, on a platform I don’t have. Blessed be the Let’s Plays and Wikis, whence comes 90% of my knowledge of stuff because I’m too damn broke to afford anything (though let’s be real, even if I had all the money in the world to throw at this game, I’d still be consulting wikis every five minutes, because I’m a lorehound at heart).
> 
> That said, there will be various points where the story will diverge from established canon; though this is still set in the Splatoon universe, with all the basic trappings you can expect from it, there are various tweaks, from the mild (age ranges have been bumped up ‘cause I felt a bit weird writing about fifteen-year-olds dealing with PTSD) to the not-so-mild (I’d give an example here, but that’d be telling). 
> 
> Also, the “Mature” fic rating is primarily for matters of mild nudity and discussion of past emotional abuse which will come up in a handful of points in the story. Nobody bouncing boobily around these parts, but… well, you’ll see. (Chapters dealing with heavier topics will be annotated accordingly.)
> 
> And with that out of the way: onward, to the beginning of the beginning!

It started with searing pain, a lance of fire that felt like it was digging into the side of his skull.

 "AYO, STATUE!"

What followed was a shrieking howl like the world itself was cracking.

 "BOO- ** _YAAAAAAHHH_** ** _HHH!_ ** "

If not for the fact that he felt like someone had balanced a skyscraper on his head, Three would've rolled over to figure out who was screaming, but save for the twitching of his fingers, his body refused to move. He could barely register the sensation of cold metal on his cheek, a whipping wind slinging his cloak around, and shortly following that cacophonous roar, the sound of something collapsing into the sea.

As his strength began to return, Three could hear celebrations going on behind him. Groggily lifting his head, another spike of pain caused him to reflexively shut his left eye, even as his right took in the sight of a fleet of helicopters, each bearing the familiar seashell logo of the Aurion Corporation. 

Dimly, he registered the presence of that tall Octoling girl he’d fought a week prior, kneeling at the edge of whatever it was they were situated on and watching whatever was happening behind him with a small smile on her face, seemingly oblivious to the shallow cuts and bruises peppering the exposed bronze skin of her arms and legs. After a moment, her deep brown eyes slid over to him, and Three’s own face grew warm under the scrutiny.

He had but a second to look away and tug up the collar of his cloak in a futile attempt to hide the blush that spread all the way to the tips of his ears before a too-familiar voice behind him solved that problem, all the color draining from his face at once.

“Yo Three, glad to see ya moving again!” Pearl said cheerily, clapping Three on the shoulder. “Was startin’ to think Eight knocked more than that spiral-thing outta your dome!” As she stepped around Three to get a better look at him, he hauled himself to his feet, irrational fear providing the fuel he needed to steel his previously noodly legs under him.

“M’fine, thanks.” It came out more raspy than he’d intended, but he was thankful for it as he stepped away to sit cross-legged near the edge of the platform.

 _She doesn’t need to know it’s me._ He shook his head, as if that would dislodge the bitter thought, and winced as the motion caused the pain in his head to flare briefly.

“Ah, don’t worry about Agent 3,” the Cap'n chuckled in response to Pearl’s confused frown, tottering over next to where Three sat. “He’s a workaholic by nature, but give him time and he’ll warm up to you.” A weathered hand plopped onto Three’s shoulder with a grip far stronger than one would expect out of someone of such advanced age, as much a paternal gesture as a commanding one.

Nothing was said, but the message came across clear enough: _I trust them. Be kind._

Clearing his throat, Three cast a glance over his shoulder, careful to let the collar of his cloak hide most of his face, and made eye contact with Pearl; after a moment of emerald-green gazing into golden—long enough for her to know it was intentional—he gave her a polite nod, and she smiled brightly.

Three tried not to let his mind linger on the sight. His eyes quickly darted away, searching for anything to draw his attention, and found it in the curious brown eyes so intently watching his, having at some point crossed the platform to squat next to him.

To his credit, he managed not to recoil in surprise as the Octoling— _Agent Eight_ , his mind registered distantly—peered into his eyes, and only slightly retreated as she leaned closer. He resisted the urge to glare at the intrusion of his personal space, as she searched his eyes for a few moments before finally speaking.

“They’re different,” she said softly, almost too soft to hear over the helicopter above, the magenta-tipped claws of one hand briefly wavering back and forth. “Your eyes. They’re different shades.” Having said that, Eight still didn’t lean back, continuing to peer into them despite Three subtly leaning back, his only acknowledgement of her statement the lift of an eyebrow.

Eventually satisfied with her examination, Eight turned her eyes to the city on the horizon as the helicopters flew them closer, and sat down next to Three, hugging her knees to her chest, but he continued to watch her for a moment longer. He’d heard her voice a few times over intercepted radio signals, but hearing it in person cemented the thought: _she sounds like she looks, like an unwound spring._ There was an easy tension to her frame, like she was on guard and trying not to be, and her voice had the throaty timber of someone who had only just awakened. Despite this, he could read her exhaustion in the slope of her shoulders, and the furrow of her brow, and he turned his gaze to the waters far below, wondering if his own tiredness was as apparent.

The sound of the Cap'n chatting with Pearl and Marina behind them and the whirr of the helicopter above faded from Three’s awareness as he stared out at the city, silently willing the helicopter ride to finish faster. Between Pearl, the dull but insistent throb of the headache just behind his left eye, the full-body exhaustion of the last week he’d spent wandering through the dilapidated maintenance tunnels of the Kamabo facility, and the salty sea air, he felt miserable, and for what was probably the five-hundredth time found himself glad that his Hero Gear came with long sleeves, ragged though they might currently be.

Something bumped his elbow, and he fell out of his thoughts to look back over at Eight, only then realizing that she was rubbing her shoulders and shivering, eyes nonetheless scanning the approaching city with an unmistakable sparkle of interest. He felt a brief pang of guilt: from what little he’d picked up on his headset as the Metro train danced across the range of his receiver, Eight had spent that entire week driving herself to the brink of collapse performing test after test for what amounted to a sackful of gewgaws and disjointed memories, and here he was pitying himself for a bit of eyestrain and sore feet.

Frowning, Three thumbed over the frayed edge of his cloak for but a moment’s deliberation before pulling it off to wrap it about Eight’s shoulders like a blanket. Almost instantly, she froze, looking down at the cloak for a moment before looking over at him, and that little smile returned.

Suddenly extremely aware of the fact that he’d let his hands linger on her shoulders after wrapping her in it, Three pulled his hands back. The cloak almost immediately tried to fly off, and the both of them flailed at it as the helicopter’s turbulent winds whipped it about, managing in moments to wind up in a heap with the cloak wrapped around them both.

Quietly, Marina nudged Pearl to grab her attention, stifling a giggle as Eight managed to find an opening and sat up, unintentionally aided by a hand plastered to her forehead. After a few more moments of struggle, Three managed to extricate himself without his hands landing anywhere untoward, only to get slapped in the face by his own tentacles as his hair-tie finished slipping off the ends. He managed to pull them out of his eyes just quick enough to watch the traitorous elastic bounce, drift, and roll right off the edge of the platform.

“You two okay over there?” Marina asked as Eight adjusted the cloak’s collar with a tentacle, her hands tugging it tighter around her shoulders as she gave Marina a nod. Refusing to look up from where he sat and still not trusting his voice, Three tossed a blind thumbs-up in Marina’s direction, staring pointedly at his legs and busying himself with tucking his tentacles down into the band on his headset. Beside him, he heard the heavy, hollow _thunk_ of Eight removing her Kamabo ink tank, followed by a shaky sigh of relief, and couldn’t fight the smirk that crept onto his lips. _I know_ _that_ _feeling._

Pearl watched him quietly, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she tried to place him. She’d thought there was something familiar about him the few times she’d seen him over the hijacked security feed, and she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was trying to keep her from getting a good look at him since he woke up on the platform. Now, seeing him without his cloak and with his hair down, it was even worse.

Before she had time to ponder any further, however, a voice called down from the helicopter above.

“Miss Pearl! We’re coming up on Deca Tower!”

—

“Well ain’t these some swanky digs.” The Cap'n whistled as the glass elevator he and Three were in descended into Deca Tower. “Reminds me of the inside of Inkopolis Tower.” Far below, they could see Inklings milling about, gathering equipment to prepare for Turf Wars, meeting with friends, and generally living their lives. Interspersed among them were occasional pockets of Octolings, some of whom appeared to be getting help from the occasional outgoing Inkling or Jellyfish. Across from them, Three could see Eight chatting with Pearl and Marina in the other elevator, either car too small for all five of them plus their equipment.

Suddenly self-conscious of the fact that he looked like he’d been run through a wringer, Three pulled off his headset and let it hang around his neck, taking a moment to straighten his clothes and remove the telltale bright yellow vest from his Hero gear, folding it down. Thinking for a moment, he partially unzipped the jacket as well, revealing a threadbare magenta undershirt as he tucked the folded vest into the inside pocket of his jacket. If someone was going to notice him, he’d rather look like he was coming back from a hard-won turf match, not a week-long trip to an underground nightmare facility.

“It’s good to see you in one piece, Casca.”

Agent Three looked up at being addressed by his real name to see the Cap’n giving him an appraising look. After a moment, the old squid’s eyes softened. “You two both went through a lot down there, in your own ways, didn’t you?”

Sighing, Three leaned on the railing of the elevator. “That place is far larger than it should be,” he said, eyes unfocusing for a moment as he recalled the previous week. “It was a maze, full of rooms down there where those sick-looking Octolings were working, building and repairing things that were used in the tests. Like, it was all built specifically _for_ the tests.” He pulled the employee model CQ-80 out of his jacket pocket, holding it up.

“Far as I could see, there weren’t but a handful of these things, and most of ‘em had dead batteries. The Octolings would walk around, go through doors, go about their business, none of ‘em carried one. The doors opened automatically for them. I didn’t find this one until maybe an hour before your emergency signal went off, and I was trying to get into one of the areas I never saw the Octolings going into, above the central station platform.” Three tucked it back into his pocket, looking past the Cap’n at Eight across the gap. She was still clutching Three’s cloak about her shoulders, her ink tank sitting against the rail with its octoshot hooked on the side, a mirror to Three’s own tank and Hero shot in their car.

“The only way I could get around was through the maintenance access tunnels, for the most part,” Three said, a hint of bitterness to his voice. “Not that anyone actually maintained the tunnels in cod knows how long. I don’t even wanna know what I crawled over in most of them.” Just thinking about it made him start scrubbing his palms on his jacket, and he shook his head before continuing.

“Wherever the maintenance tunnels were blocked, I’d have to slip through in the gaps left by the Octolings. They all moved like machines, following set paths, and the doors would stay open for five seconds after the last one walked through. All I had to do was time it, drop in, and jump through. Only got noticed a few times, but I remember each one.

“The instant one of them saw me, every Octoling in the room would react. They wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t shout, they’d all just… know. And then they’d try to pin me down.” He fingered one of the several cuts in the arm of his jacket, recalling one of them coming at him with a screwdriver, deathly silent, its face an emotionless mask as it attempted to impale him with the makeshift weapon. “Sometimes literally.”

As he fell silent, Three could feel the Cap’n’s eyes on him, searching his face. “Are you doing alright?” he asked after a moment, and Three shook himself out of his reverie, nodding. “Took a few scrapes and cuts when they’d jump me, the occasional bit of shrapnel from thrown stuff, but nothing skimming and a swim in the ink couldn’t fix,” he replied noncommittally.

Frowning, the Cap’n hummed as the elevator reached the first floor, and tapped the side of Three’s ink tank with his bamboozler as Three slung it onto his shoulder. “Dip it, Casca, you and I both know that’s not what I was asking, but I won’t push. I’ll expect a full report some time in the next few days. In the meantime, take a couple weeks off. You both need it.” As they stepped out of the elevator, Three didn’t miss the Cap’n’s pointed raising of his voice on the third sentence, and looked over at the girls stepping out of the other elevator into the relatively empty hallway they’d come to.

 _Here it comes,_ Three thought, as Pearl’s eyes lit up with recognition, and she jumped as if she’d been goosed. Realizing all eyes were on her, she abruptly pointed at him accusingly.

“Wait a sec! Three, izzat an old Callie Splatfest tee you’re wearing under there?”

And just like that, all eyes were on _him_ , and he sputtered, the response he’d half formulated unraveling in his head before it even reached his lips. Looking away, he cleared his throat and re-shouldered his ink tank, taking a moment to very conspicuously tug the zipper up a little to hide what was absolutely not the top of Callie’s head on the shirt as Pearl laughed.

“So, uh, Three,” Marina said at length, stifling the chuckle in her voice. “We were talking on the elevator ride. Eight’s going to need someone to help her get acclimated to surface life, and between Inkopolis News and Off the Hook, Pearl and I are the last people that should be doing that. She’d be left sitting around by herself most of the week if she moved in with us.”

“What a coincidence! Three’s gonna be off duty for the next few weeks to recover, too, so he’s got all the time in the world!” The Cap’n crowed, and Three resisted the urge to roll his eyes. _Back to the “doddering old fogey” act already, gramps?_

Rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, Three spoke up before he could be voluntold for the task.

“Can’t say I’d be the best Inkopolis tour guide, considering by your own admission I’m a workaholic,” he reasoned with a pointed look to the Cap’n, “And I don’t even know the other people on the same floor of the apartment building I live in.” He then looked over to Eight, who was looking at the floor with the smallest downturned expression, and he sighed.

“...that _said,_ ” he continued, noting as he did that she looked up at him, “I suppose it’d do me some good to get out and meet people that aren’t inclined to turn me into fish paste. And, worst case scenario, if Kamabo sends, like, mutated sewer-ninjas or something after us, Eight and I will be more than capable of handling them together.”

That small smile returned to Eight’s face, and he couldn’t help but return it.

“Wonderful!” Marina cheered, clasping her hands together as the five of them started down the hallway toward the parking lot adjacent Deca Tower. “We’ll have our driver drop the two of you off at your place, then.”

“So she’s _our_ driver now?” Pearl said teasingly, bumping Marina with her hip, and Marina’s face flushed darkly.

“Wh—I mea—I was ju— _Pearlie._ ” Her embarrassed stammer turned into a pout as Pearl burst into laughter and laced her fingers with Marina’s.

“Sorry, Marmar, y’know you’re just too cute when you’re blushy like that,” Pearl smarmed, and Marina made a show of exaggeratedly rolling her eyes as they reached the stairs leading to the parking lot, but made no effort to break Pearl’s grip on her hand.

“So, where we droppin’ you off at, Gramps?” Pearl asked the Cap’n, who chuckled and waved a hand.

“Ah, don’t worry ‘bout me. My place is less than a block away. Easy enough to walk to.” Turning to Three, the Cap’n gave him a tap on the arm with his cane and a pointed look over the rim of his glasses. “You take care’a Eight, now, kiddo. Far as I’m concerned, she’s family now.”

Three nodded, straightening up slightly at the informal order and squaring his shoulders. "Will do."

The Cap’n then turned to Eight with a fatherly smile, his free hand finding its way to her shoulder for a reassuring squeeze.

“You’ve done a good job, Agent,” he said proudly, and pulled her into a warm hug. “Welcome home.” Eight had to bend almost double to return the hug, but she did so happily, and Three could’ve sworn she was blinking back tears… but as quick as he saw them, they were gone again.

Afterwards, the Cap’n turned to Marina and Pearl, the latter of which immediately started rapping at him, to Marina’s mild consternation.

Turning his attention away from the Cap’n, Three tapped Eight on the shoulder to get her attention, and at her questioning look, pointed with his chin at the professional-looking black car waiting for them. “Let’s get this stuff put up so we can go,” he suggested, and she nodded, following him to the vehicle.

Reaching the back end of the car, Three thumped the side of his hand on the trunk lid twice, and the driver popped the lid in response. Once the tanks and Shots were situated, Three saw Eight feathering her thumb over the ragged edge of his cloak.

“Do you… want this back?” She asked. Thinking for a moment, Three shrugged, closing the trunk and leaning on the car. “Nah, you can hang onto it for now. You’re gonna be staying with me, anyway, so it’s not like I don’t know where it’s going.” Across from them, the Cap’n and Pearl were, as near as he could tell, still rapping, though Marina seemed to be getting through to them that they’d have plenty of time to do so another day.

Three shook his head, chuckling. “It’s good to see him talking to people about something other than _the revenge of the Octarian forces!_ and _the imminent destruction of all squidkind!_ and all that, at least.” His eyes drifted back to Eight, who very quickly looked away from him, and raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

Eight puffed out a sigh, looking back to him again, and he could see the vulnerability in her eyes.

“It’s just… a lot to take in,” she said at length. “Even with everything I had been told about the surface, actually being here… no longer having to complete tests… I keep waiting for the catch, like something’s going to click into place, and…” she waved, vaguely. “Like I’ll walk through a door and I’m still down there. Or I’ll wake up in a tank and find out I failed.”

Three nodded. “I get that. Shells, I wasn’t even involved in the tests and I’m still half waiting to wake up on an operating table or something.” He looked down, scuffing the toe of his boot on the tarmac. “I’m just kinda rolling with it. I think that’s about all we can do.”

“Aight, aight, I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” Pearl laughed as Marina practically picked her up to separate her from the Cap’n, flailing until she was put back down before calling far louder than necessary across the twenty feet that separated the two groups. “Yo Three! Load up and let Jackie know where you live so we can get rollin’, yeah?”

 _So Jackie’s still working for the family,_ Three’s mind offered up, and he swallowed around the lump of dread that tried to form in his throat with it as he opened the rear door, gesturing for Eight to enter the car. Hesitantly, she climbed into the spacious back seat, trailing her hands over the faux leather upholstery and taking in the sight of the second row of rear-facing seats. As her hands found a piece of metal and a strip of woven fabric, she turned to look at it quizzically, giving it an experimental tug, and felt it give easily before retracting.

As Three followed her, he closed the door and adjusted himself in the seat next to her, taking a moment to watch Eight examine the seatbelt with an amused expression, only to jump out of his skin as a speaker in the ceiling crackled to life, breaking the silence.

“Casca? Hook me, it _is_ you, isn’t it?” The privacy window whirred as it lowered, and the driver—Jackie, her violet undercut and exuberant grin exactly as he remembered, right down to the splotches of light skin across her face and hair like a wayward ink spray—twisted in her seat to look at him, blue eyes wide. “Casca! What the shells, man, you drop off the radar for six years and pop up outta the blue with a new girlfriend, lookin’ like you rolled through a tackle box?”

Three winced, offering her a wan smile. “Hey, Jackie.”

“Don’t you ‘hey Jackie’ me, bucko! You gonna answer my question or be a fish about it?” Despite the harshness of her tone, Jackie was smiling, and Three cast a nerve-worn glance over to Eight, who was watching their exchange with an expression akin to a child having just heard their first swear word by way of a normally gentle parent shouting it at a poor soul working in the supermarket.

“I’ve been… around, Jackie,” Three hedged, lifting his hands in a placating gesture as she opened her mouth to object to his obvious dodge. “ _And I know that’s not an answer,_ but it’s not really something I can talk about, for _security reasons_ that I can’t really get into right now.” The added stress on _security reasons_ seemed to mollify her enough, though Jackie’s face fell all the same, and Three felt like he’d kicked a nudibranch. As she released her grip on the seat back, he glanced out the tinted window at Pearl and Marina as they approached the car. “And please don’t mention my name to Pearl, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know it’s me.”

Before Jackie had a chance to ask what she should call him, the door opened, and Marina climbed in with a soft “pardon me!” to sit across from Eight, followed shortly by Pearl, who almost didn’t have to bend over to stand in the car. As soon as the door shut behind her, Pearl plopped her backside in the seat immediately across from Three, kicked her foot up to cross one knee over the other (and nearly clipped his nose in doing so), planted both hands on her knee, and settled a grin on him like a shark that just found blood in the water, leaning forward eagerly.

“Time to dish, fish. Where the fuck have you been?”

_...I should really stop expecting things, shouldn’t I._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Language*, Pearl!  
> (Who’m I kidding, I’ve been camp “Let Pearl Say Fuck” since OctoEx came out and her thrash metal roots were revealed.)
> 
> There’s two “tiers” of curses in Inkling society: “family friendly” curses (“hook me!” “what the shells, man?” “Dip it, Casca,” “don’t be a fish about it!” etc) which grew from minced oaths, and “full-calorie” curses. The general usage line depends on which side of the argument you’re on: are you the overworked blue-collar squid trying to stock the shelves and get through the day, or are you the suburban bottle-blonde bobtail trying to Let Me Speak To Your Manager her way into two dollars off the price of box wine because the tag on the shelf was two inches off?
> 
> Due to Inkopolis’s reputation as a high-collar city, you’re more likely to see older, veteran Turfers using proper swears than younger ones, because it’s seen as something of a rural or “country bumpkin” language thing. Between Pearl’s pottymouth tendencies being hard to completely tamp down, and the gradual rise of younger and younger Turfers as inkfights grew from a noteworthy pastime to a proper sport and potential career, however, the minced oaths are starting to get significantly more common again.
> 
> Up next on Whispers in the Dark: Who exactly is Casca, anyway? Three’s got some s’plainin’ to do! And why is Eight so keen on hanging onto that cloak?
> 
> Stay tuned!


	2. Heartache

She’d been wearing her ink tank since she woke up, almost six hours ago.

Eight was almost afraid to take it off, even though she knew the fighting was over; Agent Three hadn’t even removed his, and he was an inveterate soldier, perhaps even moreso than herself. Then again, his ink tank was clearly made of newer materials than the Kamabo-issued model she wore. It probably weighed a lot less.

There was something about his eyes that caught her attention, as on-edge as she still was, and her legs almost moved before she wanted to, bringing her down at his side.

It took her barely a second to register what was wrong: his right eye was a natural shade of bright green, but his left eye—the one on the same side as the spiral slime that had clung to his head when the Telephone had controlled him—was closer to the sickly turquoise shade of the ink the Kamabo forces used. Was some remnant of Commander Tartar still inside him?

Realizing Agent Three was probably unaware, Eight tamped down her rising concern. “They’re different,” she said simply, her hand making a simple gesture. “Your eyes. They’re different shades.”

She’d hoped he’d say something, anything, to ease her suspicions, but his only response was the raising of a deep-blue eyebrow. (His left eyebrow, of course. Was that Tartar? Was that just him? She wrangled that thread of thought back down as well.)

When Agent Three didn’t do anything else, she gave up her scrutiny, and returned her attention to the buildings on the edge of the bay. He’d been helpfully unsubtle when Tartar had controlled him, she told herself; the fact that he didn’t attack anyone when he woke again showed he was probably okay. Besides, Tartar was dead, had to be, unmade by that literal _wave of sound_ that Pearl had struck it with, and if anything remained in Three’s head, it was well and truly disconnected from anything that might’ve survived.

And then he’d given her his cloak, the one that’d protected him from her inkshots when they’d fought. She’d not asked for it, yet he gave it freely, and seemed just as shocked as she was when it tried to flutter off.

It still held his warmth, and she found herself unwilling to let go of it, even once it was properly situated on her shoulders. (She tried not to dwell on how _nice_ it felt, the brief moment where the two of them were wrapped up in it, even if it made her acutely aware that the stale reek of sea salt and under-maintained tunnels seemed baked into their clothes.)

(She maybe dwelled on it a bit more than she wanted to anyway.)

If Agent Three, the legendary soldier, was willing to give her such a key piece of his defense, even if he hadn’t removed his ink tank… maybe she _could_ relax. Maybe she _could_ let go, for the time being. The only potential threats she could think of were far enough outside the realm of possibility that she found it easier than she expected to soothe the knot of fear in her stomach.

She unclasped the straps of her ink tank, and winced at the familiar and always unsettling sensation of the ink port in the harness sliding out of her back, and her body closing the hole as it always did. The tank clattered to the platform, and she couldn’t hold back the sigh of relief if she tried.

—

“So like, first we gotta get you some clothes, ‘cause _gurrrrrrl_ that getup looks straight outta 2010. Marina, back me up here.”

They were in some kind of elevator, descending from the top of the tower they’d arrived at, and Pearl was chattering up a storm, clearly excited at the prospect of taking Eight shopping. She didn’t feel quite so excited, and she almost felt bad for not feeling excited.

“Well, I think it looks great on her, but I get what you mean,” Marina mused, eyeing Eight’s outfit. “We’re about the same size, so I should have some clothes she can wear, though they might be a bit… loose, on her.”

“Yeah, she’s almost the same height, but you do have a few more curves than Eight does,” Pearl laughed, and Eight felt an odd pang of… something at her words. She wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, just yet. “You sure packed on the pounds after you moved in, though.”

“Well, of course I did!” Marina huffed. “I was thin as a rail from living on military rations my whole life before I came to Inkopolis, and the first proper meal you gave me was a Triple Deluxe burger and a large shake!” _Burger? Shake?_

“Hah! Yeah, I remember that! You inhaled that thing like you thought I was gonna steal it or something! Thought I was gonna have to stop you from licking the wrapper too.” Pearl was pretty clearly teasing Marina, but something about the way Marina had talked about this “burger” had her wondering just what it could be. She vaguely recalled hearing one of the deepsea denizens mention it as well.

“What’s a burger?” Eight asked softly, and Pearl’s eyes lit up like fireworks.

“Oh. My. **CAWD.** You don’t know what a burger is! Marina, she doesn’t know what a _burger_ is!” Pearl was practically hopping in place, her hands vibrating back and forth in her sleeves. It was adorable, if a little concerning. “We deffo gotta get you one, STAT. You are going to be Blown. Away.”

“Pearl…” Marina sighed. “Maybe rather than give her a calorie-laden greasebomb that her body won’t be able to handle right off the bat, we start her on normal food, and work our way up from there? Or did you forget what happened twenty minutes _after_ you gave me that burger?”

Pearl’s bouncing stopped immediately, and her expression switched from unbridled glee to something Eight could only describe as ‘ick’. “Right, yeah, maybe that’s a better idea.”

Eight wasn’t quite so sure she wanted to know what a “burger” was any more.

“Anyway, that reminds me, you’re gonna need someone to help you learn about life here on the surface,” Marina said after a moment. “I know you were looking through those magazines they had on the train, but there’s a lot about life up here that the magazines don’t tell you, things that most of society takes for granted.”

“They didn’t tell me much at all,” Eight admitted, and her fingers dug a little tighter into the shoulders of Agent Three’s cloak. “There was a lot of emphasis on being “fresh” and wearing the right clothes, and one of them had an interview with a group… I think they were called “Vitamin INK”? But there wasn’t really anything about what it’s like to live up here.”

“Oh yeah, those guys. Think I went to school with Taloupe. Real quiet type.” Pearl wrinkled her nose, which Eight had begun to understand was her “I’m thinking of something” face. “Those issues musta been pretty old, though, I think Vitamin INK’s last big break was almost a year ago.”

“All the more reason Eight is going to need a guide, then,” Marina suggested. “Even the fashion scene has changed since then.”

“Yeah… _argh_ , this _sucks_! I wish we could be the ones to show you around, Eight! We barely managed to squeeze in a day off work to come pick you up as it is.” Pearl folded her arms, leaning against the elevator door, and Eight’s face fell. They didn’t have to explain; she knew from the chat logs that Pearl and Marina had a number of obligations, but that didn’t make it any better. She knew they trusted her. She couldn’t say the same of many others.

Seeing her concern, Marina smiled, and reached out to give Eight’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll figure something out.” Eight found herself missing that touch, despite the mere moment that it was there.

—

The Cap’n’s tales of Agent Three had built him up as some kind of monolith in her mind, and even despite that, what little she remembered of fighting him a week prior, nevermind what she’d experienced when he was under the Telephone’s control, had made it seem all the more validating when he’d admitted that he was still processing everything that’d happened, just as she was.

He’d offered to give her a place to stay, and to help her learn about life on the surface. He’d even let her keep wearing his ink-resistant cloak. Agent Three, the scourge of the Octarian Forces. Agent Three, who had not hesitated to throw himself through a thirty-foot-high glass dome, to throw himself against that giant blender and shatter it to save both her and the Cap’n. Agent Three, who had _by himself_ posed a harder fight and greater threat to Eight than entire teams of Octolings could.

And then the strange new woman with the pretty patterns on her skin had called Agent Three something different, something new, and he looked like he was staring down the barrel of a Charger.

This person knew him. This person _knew him._ Not as Agent Three, but as someone else. And Agent Three was afraid.

Instantly, Eight began considering her options, her breath quickening, her hearts winding up into a staccato _prrumpathump_ hard enough she could practically hear her ink rushing in her ears. The door appeared to operate on a simple latch mechanism; she’d seen another on the wall behind her as she was climbing into the vehicle. It would be easy enough to pop the latch and fall out of the door if there was a problem, but they had put their weapons, along with their tanks, in the storage compartment, which meant she was still without a weapon. And unlike Inklings, she didn’t have the muscles to use her ink bladder directly in her transformed state, couldn’t produce an emergency jet-stream of ink to blind an assailant. She did have her claws, but she wasn’t sure she had the strength to handle that right then. She had the cloak; if Agent Three needed cover, she could throw herself between them, and then they could get out the way they came in. That was probably the safest option.

And then, Agent Three seemed to be handling the situation, seemed to be getting his footing again; this “Jackie” perhaps wasn’t hostile after all, and even seemed happy to see him, now that she thought about it. Agent Three told her not to mention his name to Pearl, which seemed sensible enough—perhaps that was part of the “security reasons” he’d mentioned. She felt a bit foolish for immediately assuming the worst.

Marina and Pearl climbed into the vehicle, and Eight almost felt like she could lower her guard again. Marina even gave her a friendly pat on the knee, and Pearl seemed quite happy about something, like she was ready to—

“Time to dish, fish. Where the fuck have you been?”

Oh.

Agent Three looked like he was looking down the barrel of a Charger again. Only this time, it wasn’t an expression like a cornered animal, but like a wounded soldier with an empty ink tank.

“Pearl!?” Marina seemed just as shocked as Eight was, which was a small comfort. Her teal-tipped fingers were splayed across her chest, eyes wide as saucers.

“What, you really thought I couldn’t figure it was you, Cass?” Pearl laughed. “You mighta changed since we last saw each other, but I’m not dumb. And I know you recognized _me._ ” There was an odd sort of edge to Pearl’s voice, like the barest hint of bitterness in her tone.

All of a sudden, Agent Three (Casca? Should she think of him by that name? It felt wrong, somehow) seemed to deflate like an untied balloon, settling into his seat and closing his eyes. His left hand came up to massage his temple ( _left, left eye, left side of his head_ , and she shoved the thought back down) and he took a deep breath, held it for three seconds, let it out in a slow sigh.

“I already knew you figured it out, but I was hoping I was wrong,” Agent Three said after a few seconds, still with his eyes closed. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to—”

“—what, didn’t want to know you were _alive?_ Your best friend for ten fuckin’  _years_ , practically lived in my guest house, practically lived _together_ , up until you just disappeared into thin air like a fuckin’ ghost?” She had gone from bitter to biting, now, but Pearl was still smiling. It felt wrong, forced. Like a mask. Eight hated it.

“I didn’t even know it was _you_ until I heard you in person,” Agent Three (she still wasn’t sure if she should think of him otherwise) said flatly, opening his eyes to look at Pearl. “You’ve changed a lot since then, and…” He sighed, and Eight could see a sadness in his eyes. He smiled then, too, and it too felt like a mask, but not for the same reasons. Eight didn’t like it either. “I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me, considering everything you went through.”

Pearl bit her lip, like she wanted to say something and was stopping herself. After a second, she flopped back against her seat with a huff, and turned to stare out the window.

“Guess you forgot we said we’d be bros for life,” she grumbled, and Eight spared a glance at Marina. She seemed just as lost. It felt like they were intruding on a conversation they weren’t supposed to hear. Eight was grateful she wasn’t alone in this, at least.

The silence that followed made her ears ring, like every tiny noise in the cabin was amplified a hundred fold, until Pearl mercifully spoke up again. “Didja tell Jackie where we’re dropping you off?”

“...not yet, no.” Agent Three almost seemed to be preparing himself for another outburst. “2416 Haddock Street.”

“WHAT.” Eight winced as Pearl practically leapt out of her seat. “No. _Ab_ sofuckinglutely not. How? Why the f—Casca. _Why are you living at Bayside_. Of all places! Fucking _Bayside?_ ”

Three held up his hands again, the same gesture he’d made toward Jackie earlier. “It’s not that bad, I—”

“Not that b— _not that bad._ Casca. Are you, or are you not, aware that that _mudhole_ got hit with three health violations in the last year? One more and the building’s gonna get condemned. The guy running that place is a _leech!_ ” Pearl’s voice was rising, shrill, and almost painful.

“I know that, but I had to take what I could get. I couldn’t afford it,” Agent Three explained, and Eight thought Pearl’s eyes were going to bug out of her head.

“What, does the mafia have your dad by the gills or something? What the hell happened in six years that would keep you from—”

“ _I ran away._ ”

The sudden silence almost set Eight’s ears to ringing again.

“...what?” Pearl managed, after several seconds of gawping at him like.

It was Agent Three’s turn to stare out the window, his arms folded over his chest. He looked vulnerable, and Eight suddenly had the urge to give him back the cloak.

“All of us? Me, Marcus, Prajna, Antony, the others? We were plants. My parents pushed me to be your friend. All of ours did. I always thought it was so you’d have friends around your age.” Agent Three (no, Casca) turned his head, just slightly, to look Pearl in the eye. “They did it because your grandfather paid them to.”

“...oh.” It came out soft, almost too soft to hear, and Pearl seemed to wilt into her seat. “That… would certainly explain why you disappeared, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Coddamned Ferdinand, I knew it, I _knew it_ ,” a voice came from the front seat, and Eight was abruptly reminded that Jackie was there as she thumped a fist against the dividing wall. She wasn’t smiling any more. “Always thought it was weird that you had so many guy friends but not a girl among ‘em. Couldn’t say anything without risking my job.”

“That’s not to say that we _weren’t_ your friends,” Casca said, still looking out the window, and his voice dropped to a mutter. “Even if we weren’t particularly good at it.” Pearl smiled at that, though it was small. Eight didn’t hate this one. “But when I asked my parents about it, the answer I got was…” He sighed, and shook his head. “It was probably more honest than they intended. Or maybe they thought I’d agree with them. I didn’t, so I walked out… and I guess I just kept walking, after that.”

 _So principled you might explode,_ drifted through Eight’s mind, and she didn’t quite have the nerve to squash that stray thought like most of the others.

“Yeah, that’s the Casca I know,” Pearl said with a sigh, but the smile never left. “All action, no plan.” She turned in her seat, reaching up to bump a knuckle against Jackie’s hand, where the driver was still twisted around. “Nuts to Bayside. Take us to the Villa.”

“You’re the boss, Miss P,” Jackie chirped, twisting forward again in her seat. “Seatbelts!”

“Pearl.” Casca spoke with the tone of a warning, even as he reached behind himself, grabbing what looked like a larger version of an ink tank buckle from above his left shoulder.

“Nuh-uh. Not hearing it,” Pearl shot back, doing the same, and pulled a strap across her to connect it to a latch point Eight only now noticed sticking out of the seat. Across from her, Marina followed suit, so Eight turned back to the buckle she’d first taken note of when she got into the vehicle. She was no engineer, but she didn’t think one needed to be an engineer to recognize a safety harness for what it was.

When she looked up from buckling in, Marina was smiling at her. _Good job,_ she mouthed, and Eight felt her cheeks grow warm. It wasn’t exactly complicated, but the compliment was nice, all the same.

“I have stuff at Bayside,” Casca said, as the vehicle began moving.

Pearl rolled her eyes before affixing him with a flat stare. “Then tomorrow Jackie’ll take you there so you can get your stuff. Cass, I’m not going to let _my closest childhood friend_ live in a rundown boghole. Besides, didn’t you say Eight was gonna stay with you? She doesn’t deserve that, any more than you do.”

As she said this, she gestured toward Eight, and Casca looked at her out of the corner of his eye; Eight felt her face grow even warmer at the sudden attention. He frowned, an almost invisible pull to his lips, before looking back at Pearl. “Alright, I get it. But on one condition, I’m gonna find a way to repay you.”

“Dude, I’m shella loaded, and Daddy basically _gave_ me the villa as is,” Pearl droned. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Then I’ll find some other way.” Casca stuck out his hand. “I’m not going to give on this, Pearl.”

“Geesh.” Another roll of the eyes, but Pearl took the handshake all the same. Eight was beginning to wonder if Pearl might get dizzy if she kept it up.

With that matter sorted, Pearl abruptly turned her attention to Eight and Marina, and went from cheerful to bashful almost immediately. “I, uh… sorry you two had to sit through that,” she said after a moment. “Like I said, me and Casca, we were besties back when we were younger. Or at least as close to it as we could be,” she added, with an apologetic glance towards him. “He was the only one out of our group that I really felt I could trust. The other guys’d poke fun at me for bein’ me, but Casca would stand up to them. Most of the time.”

Casca had leaned back into his seat, his hands folded in his lap, and was simply watching the three of them. He looked relaxed, perhaps moreso than any other time Eight had seen him, and she began to realize just how stressed he had been, worried about the possibility of the argument they’d had. How stressed she was, as well; she could still feel the tension in her back, and it hurt to lean back too much into the seat, as long as she’d spent with that tank on her back, that port _in_ her back. So much time spent fighting, or being prepared to fight. Her fingers reflexively dug into the shoulders of the cloak again; she didn’t even remember bringing her hands back up to it.

Marina said something, and Pearl responded, and Eight distantly felt bad for not catching what they’d said; she turned her eyes back to the pair, saw that they were holding hands again, and absently wondered what that felt like. They were discussing something, talking to her as well, but she was content to listen to them chat, even if she wasn’t necessarily following along. She could feel the exhaustion catching up with her.

The shifting light outside the window caught her attention, and Eight looked outside at the passing buildings. Signs in various colors, people of various races, all blurred by into a homogeneous smear that was almost hypnotizing to watch. They weren’t traveling nearly as fast as the Metro had, and even sometimes slowed or stopped, and she could see Inklings, Jellyfish, and the occasional stray Octoling, just living their lives.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d spent watching the world pass by, but before long she noticed the other two had fallen silent, and turned to look. Marina’s arm was draped over Pearl’s shoulders, and they were holding hands, watching out the window. She swallowed the not-particularly-unexpected pang of longing at the show of affection as she turned to look at Casca in the seat beside her.

They had gone quiet because he’d fallen asleep. His posture hadn’t changed much; he’d tilted a bit, toward her, but was otherwise in the same pose he’d been in before. His eyes were shut, and she could see his chest rise and fall, slowly, rhythmically.

Glancing back over at Pearl and Marina, Eight leaned back gingerly in her seat, attempting to adopt a similar pose to Casca’s, and closed her eyes, but doing so made the dull ache in her back worse. She shifted, a little, and peeked out of a nearly-closed eye; the other two were still watching the window.

Carefully, gently, she adjusted her posture, so that she wasn’t leaning so much on her back, but to her side, and sure enough, felt her tentacles brush against Casca’s shoulder. He was close enough that she could reasonably rest her head on him, and anyway, it made her back hurt less, so she committed, and scooted her butt just a bit so that she could properly lean on him.

She told herself she’d just claim she was asleep when she did it, if they asked.

She might even believe it herself, once she was awake again.

As she drifted, she heard a soft shuffle, and a faint _click_ ; murmurs, barely audible even if she wasn’t already half gone; and then, blissful silence.

—

The silence hadn’t lasted long, all things considered. In what felt like minutes, but was probably closer to an hour, there was a hand on her knee, and Eight felt more than heard Casca waking up as well, his shoulder tensing as he croaked out a yawn.

Peeling her eyes open, she sat up. Marina sat back, smiling at her. “We’re here,” she said softly. “Twenty minutes and you can go to sleep in a proper bed.” The light through the tinted window was much dimmer than before, and of a much warmer hue.

“Nn, I’ll be fine,” Eight mumbled, rubbing her eyes and fumbling for the latch on her seatbelt. The door opened beside her, and Marina climbed out, with Pearl close behind. Eight followed suit, idly wondering if it was necessary for everyone to exit through the same door.

Standing up after napping in the seat felt made her muscles feel like rubber, and she almost lost her balance for a moment, but managed to catch herself as she stepped aside to let Casca get out.

When he didn’t, and the door to the vehicle swung shut, she turned around to find him rounding the back of the vehicle from the other side. He didn’t have to thump the top of the compartment this time, the lid popping open as he approached it, and she wondered at such an odd design choice. Was the thump from before simply because it hadn’t been opened in a while?

Casca reached in and pulled out their ink tanks, slinging them both by the straps over his shoulder without preamble. “Dang, I’m impressed,” he said after a moment of jostling the tanks on his shoulder, and turned his green eyes her way, the corner of his mouth ever-so-slightly raised. “This Kamabo can might be heavier than the Cap’n’s old war tank.” And with that he just started walking off toward the two buildings in front of them.

With her ink tank. Slung over his shoulder alongside his own, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

“W-wait!” Eight stammered, and he stopped, turning to look at her with a raised eyebrow ( _left, LEFT, always the left_ ) and she realized they were _all_ looking at her now, too. The fingers of her right hand dug reflexively into the shoulder of the cloak again.“You don’t have to carry it,” she added, much softer, and held out her other hand.

“Eh, it’s not far. C’mon.” Rather than give her the tank, Casca reached out and took her hand in his (his right hand, that terminally panicked part of her mind noticed) and Eight felt a surprised tingle shoot up her back as he gave it a light tug. His hand was warm, and rough, and his grip firm, but gentle, and she found herself following him, her mind too wound up in the sensation of her hand in his to focus on anything in particular as she stared down at the walkway.

“I’d give you guys the tour,” Pearl was saying, “but you need some proper sleep first. And take a bath, Cass, you smell like wharf horf.” “Not like I had much choice, Pearl, unless you forgot I spent an entire week down there,” Casca chuckled, and his hand squeezed Eight’s, ever so slightly. “Besides, I don’t think I smell that much worse than Eight.” “Then you’ve gone nose-blind, because you _both_ smell like wharf horf.” “Pearl, what does that even mean.” “Y’know, like the wharf, and _horf_ ,” and the word came out almost like a retching sound, followed by a soft laugh from Marina.

“Fair enough,” Casca grunted. “I’ll need something to wear, though, unless you expect me to run around in the altogether while my clothes are in the wash.” Eight’s mind cycled over the sentence numbly. What was an altogether?

“Pff, nothing I haven’t seen anyway,” Pearl said flippantly. “But if you _have_ to have clothes, we never really cleaned out the closets at the guest house after Daddy gave me the villa, so there should still be some leftover stuff from your folks in one of ‘em.”

Wait. Altogether was another word for _naked_? Eight’s traitorous mind offered up an idea of what Casca would look like, freshly scrubbed and lacking clothes, his tentacles fully relaxed and hanging loose to frame his face, and suddenly her face was getting warm for reasons she couldn't quite place.

“Suppose that’d be better than me borrowing your clothes again,” he laughed. “I was already outgrowing you even before I left.” Wait, _again_? Did he and Pearl share clothes when they were younger?

“You could always bum some of Marina’s, she’s got plenty of extra lingerie lying around.” At Pearl’s suggestion, Eight’s brain helpfully overlaid a sheer top and matching panties she had seen in one of the magazines on the Metro, and suddenly it felt like her ears were burning.

“I’m not so sure, I think you’d look cute in Pearl’s pajamas,” Marina suggested, with a lilt of humor to her voice. “You could probably rock the croptop and hotpants look.” And then Eight’s brain sprang to _that_ mental image, and at that point she she was sure that her head was going to start boiling.

“Well, I mean, yeah I would,” Casca said, “But assuming I could even get _into_ Pearl’s clothes without breaking the waistband, I wouldn’t even be able to move without blowing out the seams.”

Oh, _no_.

“...Eight? You feeling okay?” Her broken situational awareness abruptly rebooted as she felt the sensation of coolness against her overheated face, and she snapped out of her daze to realize Casca had set the tanks down and had the back of his hand to her forehead, standing on his tiptoes to peer into her eyes.

“M’FINE,” she blurted, a bit too loudly, and flinched at her own volume as he backed away. “I-I’m fine,” she corrected after a second, refusing to meet his eyes. “Just… thinking, about things.”

Casca’s brow pinched with worry, and then both eyebrows shot upward, and his face flushed darkly as it clicked. “Oh.”

Pearl and Marina both burst into laughter, and Eight wanted nothing more than to burrow into the ground and forget she existed. Her grip tightened on Casca’s hand, and surprisingly, he returned it, a firm squeeze that seemed to lessen her embarrassment, if only a little.

“ _Aaanyway,_ ” he said, a bit too loudly as he snatched up the ink tanks again, “I’ll show Eight to the guest house, we’ll get ourselves situated, and in the morning we’ll go by my old apartment, get my old stuff and do some shopping for food on the way back, thank you for your generosity and kindness and for giving us a place to stay and thank you and goodnight!” Casca’s voice almost gave out as he rushed out the end of the sentence, and Eight was suddenly yanked off balance as he took off, barely managing to get her feet back under her.

“G’niiiiight!” Marina and Pearl chimed in chorus behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone get me a new Agent Eight, I think mine broke.
> 
> (Also, before anyone asks: yes, I did in fact goof with which side of Agent Three's head the Telephone spiral had latched onto. Let's just call that a feature, not a bug.)
> 
> This chapter actually went through a couple revisions before I settled on its current form. While my brain instinctively wanted to continue where chapter one left off, doing so left out some very key characterization for Eight that was sorely needed. It also lead to some plot snags, not from lacking the POV shift, but rather because I hadn't yet completely nailed down Casca's history with Pearl.
> 
> Speaking of history, I suspect a few folks will be able to pick up on the hints I'm laying out (and I certainly laid out several in this chapter). If you *do* think you figure them out, though, don't mention it in the comments! Leave it to be a surprise for other readers! (And please don't try to be cheeky about it either. Trust me, I've been there, I've done it myself, you're never being as subtle as you think you are, and you *will* spoil it for others. Be kind.)
> 
> Next time on Whispers in the Dark: Weakness, worries, water, and warmth.
> 
> Stay tuned!


	3. Fleshwound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one ran a bit long, mostly because I had something of a set goal for where the chapter would end, and my itinerant sesquipedalian loquaciousness (read: me like make many big words) lead to things turning out longer than I expected. So, because I’m an indulgent prong and already cut two scenes down (yes, this is actually the *shorter* edit of it all) you all get an extra-long chapter! Woo!
> 
> ！！！ＣＯＮＴＥＮＴ ＷＡＲＮＩＮＧ！！！
> 
> This chapter contains descriptions of bodily injuries being cared for, and there will be blood (although not a lot). Not particularly graphic, but I’m still putting this warning here ‘cause I know it sucks stumbling into that sort of thing unawares if you have problems with it.  
> There’s also nudity, because I’m a Godless heathen.
> 
> Ｂｅ ｙｅ ｆｏｒｅｗａｒｎｅｄ.

The path to the guest house at the Villa wasn’t a long one, all things considered. They’d already covered half the distance from the front drive just walking from the car by the time Eight came to a complete stop, her eyes unfocused, her face flushed, her breath coming in short puffs. Casting a glance at Pearl and Marina, Casca set the tanks down, leaning the unbalanced Kamabo tank against his leg.

“Eight? You feeling okay?” he asked, brushing aside one of her foretentacles to press the back of his hand to her forehead. _Warm, but not feverish,_ he mused, and leaned up to look into her eyes. _No concussion?_

Suddenly her eyes focused on his, and she went pale. “M’FINE!” She barked, and he backed up quickly as she tore her eyes away, staring down at the juncture of their hands. “I-I’m fine. Just… thinking, about things.”

_What in the world could she be thinking about that would—wait._

_We were just talking about_ … Suddenly his own face felt warm, and he knew full well that his ears were lit up as red as the rest of his face. “Oh.”

As Pearl and Marina collapsed against each other in laughter, Eight’s hand tightened around his own, but she didn’t lift her head, too embarrassed to move. He squeezed back, his own brain now running itself in circles as he shifted into panic mode, snagging the tanks and slinging them over his shoulder as he babbled something he was pretty sure was an itinerary and a farewell all at once before setting off for the guest house, Eight in tow.

Their pace wasn’t necessarily hurried, but Casca found himself feeling winded all the same. _Slow down, you’re running on fumes._ He cast a glance back at Eight as he slowed up to let her walk beside him instead of being pulled along, noting as he did that she was looking up at the guest house.

While the villa itself was a sprawling, open-plan affair with many sliding glass doors to provide ventilation, the guest house was more modest in design: one floor like the main house, two bedrooms and a bathroom in the back half of the house, a modest kitchen with attached dining room, and a front room designed in the same fashion as the villa, with one large glass wall and double sliding glass doors on the adjoining side. It was very much the kind of place designed to be a home away from home for visitors, and would probably qualify as a quaint suburban home on its own.

And for the foreseeable future, it was now their home.

“Home sweet home,” he said with a smile, and Eight’s attention turned back to him. “This is where we’re staying?” Her tone felt almost reverent. “What about Pearl and Marina?”

Casca nodded meaningfully back the way they came, Eight twisting to follow the movement. “They live in the main building. If I remember from one of their interviews, Marina also has an apartment in town that they sometimes stay at.”

“How many people live here?” she breathed, and Casca tilted his head, thinking.

“Pearl was always pretty independent, didn’t like having servants, as I recall.” He wrinkled his nose for a moment. “So I think they pretty much live alone. Jackie has her own place, unless that’s changed in six years, and they probably have a maid in to clean sometimes. So, including us, that’d make four, basically.” He slipped his hand free of Eight’s, climbing the three stairs to the entryway.

“And speaking of six years, if my memory serrrrves…” Casca kneeled at the edge of the entryway and dug his hand into the flowerbed that ran along the glass wall of the front room. Almost immediately, his fingers hit a familiar rough surface, and he scooped it out, extracting a synthetic rock from the dirt. “Bingo. Spare key.” Feeling around the underside, he popped open the hidden compartment, and a shiny brass-colored key dropped out of it into his palm.

“Pearl and I went to the same school growing up, here in Inkopolis,” he explained as he opened the front door, and motioned her in. “My parents worked for her grandfather at the Aurion Corporation, and I lived two hours out of town. Since I was one of her _friends,_ ” and he couldn’t help the bitter note that momentarily crept into his voice as he set the fake rock on a table by the door, “When we were enrolled in the same private school here in Inkopolis, our parents arranged for us both to stay here during the school year, so we spent the better part of five years living in this house.”

Setting the ink tanks down against the wall, Casca sat on the raised wooden floor of the main house with a grunt and began to unstrap his boots, casting a meaningful glance to Eight. “Inkling society 101: with only a few exceptions, you leave your shoes in the entryway of the house, whether it’s yours or you’re just visiting. Keeps you from tracking dirt in.” She nodded, and sat beside him to unzip her own footwear.

“No idea how you can stand running around in those,” he chuckled as the first boot came off, and she looked over to him. “I need a full set of unrestricted gear to kick butt, and you took me down in a skirt and heels.” He was rewarded for his complement with that small smile he was growing fond of, and had to remind himself not to stare as he noticed that the ends of her toes were stained magenta, just like her fingertips.

Now barefoot, he tossed his boots aside, stood and picked up the tanks again. “Go ahead and leave the cloak on the coat hook there,” he added, and Eight hesitated a moment, her fingers digging into the shoulders of it. After a second, she took a deep breath and nodded, pulling the cloak up and off.

When she turned to hang it on the hook, Casca got a good look at her back, and his eyes went wide, his grip on the tank straps slipping. Almost too dark to see against the fabric of her top and partially obscured by the two broad tentacles that hung to her shoulder blades, but glinting in the incandescent light in the entryway, a scattering of black shrapnel protruded from her back.

Where the top ended and her lower back was revealed, he could see more of them, the fragments of material far more concentrated toward the small of her back, just above her skirt. He could see, even at this distance, how the skin of her back had grown around the shrapnel, much in the same way that the body would heal around a piercing. None of it stuck out more than an inch.

As she turned back to look at him, her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Your back,” he said after a hard swallow, realizing his mouth had gone dry. At the tilt of Eight’s head, he frowned. “Your back’s absolutely shredded. You’ve got metal bits sticking out everywhere.”

Eight’s eyes widened, and she reflexively reached back to feel for it. “D-don’t touch it,” Casca blurted, almost dropping the ink tanks, and adjusted them in his grip. “Leave them as they are and come with me.”

Silently, nervously, Eight padded along behind him as he stepped into the kitchen. Quickly pulling out a pair of large plastic bowls, he then shuffled down the short hallway to the back of the house, where the two bedrooms were, and set the ink tanks down against the wall in the first bedroom, leaving the bowl on the dresser. “Wait here a sec.”

Leaving Eight by the bed, Casca rounded the corner into the bathroom situated between the two bedrooms. It was by itself almost as large as a bedroom, with both a bathtub and a standing shower stall, as well as a toilet and sink; from the cabinet beneath the sink, Casca pulled a first-aid kit, taking a moment to confirm that it was stocked, and a pair of large towels.

As he walked back into the bedroom, he found Eight standing by a full-length mirror he hadn’t noticed in the corner, examining her own back with an almost panicked expression. “I’ve… been running around like this?” She said softly.

“Do you have any idea what could’ve caused it?” He asked as he shucked his jacket, unceremoniously tossing it into a corner. He winced as a thump reminded him that his CQ-80 was in there, but he shoved that concern aside and laid out the towels across the foot of the queen-sized bed.

“...my tank.” She shuddered, hugging herself, her eyes downcast. “Sometimes the tests would have additional fail conditions. If I failed the test, an explosive attached to the tank would go off and splat me.”

 _If I find the person responsible for that idea..._ An unsubtle _sqoonk_ issued from Casca’s ink tank as he pulled off the outlet hose that ran to his Hero Shot a little too hard, making them both jump. Shaking his head and unclenching his jaw, he slung the tank onto his back and buckled it on again, letting his back shift just enough for the inlet siphon to settle in place and slide into his ink bladder. _Four years of constant use, and I_ _still_ _can’t get used to that feeling,_ he mused as his ink began to trickle into the tank, and he motioned her over to him.

“Take my hand and synchronize with my ink color,” he said, holding out his hand and allowing the surface tension to slack. Eight hesitantly took the offered hand. She was shaking a little, he realized, a little distant, possibly thinking about the circumstances that lead to the shrapnel being there. “Hey. Eight, stay with me,” he said softly, putting his other hand over hers, and her eyes focused on him. “It’s not as bad as it looks. This won’t take long, I’ll get you all patched up in no time. I promise.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out slow. After a few moments, he felt her hand lose tension, and a few seconds later, her tentacles changed color, a ripple from roots to tip fading indigo, purple, then Casca’s own deep blue. A downward glance confirmed that her fingers and toes had also changed.

“There you go,” he smiled. “Now, I need you to lay down on your stomach on these towels. Sorry to say, I don’t think there’ll be much left of your clothes after this, but we’ll find you something to wear.”

As she lay across the bed, Casca opened the first aid kit and removed a pair of forceps, scissors, rubbing alcohol, and a thick roll of gauze. Grabbing a chair that stood in the corner, he set the chair at her side. It wasn’t quite tall enough for the bed, but he didn’t need it to be, setting the bowls and medical supplies on it before reaching up to unstrap his tank, wincing as the inlet siphon slid out of his back. He could feel it closing slower than usual, and he’d only managed to output a fifth of a tank’s worth of ink. It’d have to do. Any more than that and he’d get lightheaded.

 _I’m definitely running on empty._ Casca ignored the thought as he set the tank aside for the moment, and readied the scissors. “Can you hold your hair out of the way? I’m going to cut the back of your jacket off.”

Eight didn’t lift her hands, but the two tentacles on the back of her head flexed in and to the side, revealing her neck and shoulders, and he blinked gormlessly, pausing in the process of tucking his own tentacles into the back of his shirt to keep them out of the way.

“Wait, wait, how did you do that?”

“Do what?” Eight seemed to be, at least for the moment, back in the present.

“That thing with your hair you just did. You just moved your hair without your hands.”

Eight rolled slightly to one side, turning to look up at him, a look of confusion on her face. “I… moved my hair,” she repeated, as if that was perfectly normal.

_What._

“You can _do that?_ But how can—” closing his eyes, Casca took a deep breath. “Medicine first, biology later.” Opening his eyes, he almost missed the small smile on her face as he made a twirling motion with his finger. “Eyes front, please.”

Carefully, Casca lifted the fabric of her jacket from the bottom, snipping gingerly as he worked his way up and peeling back the fabric. He could hear Eight’s breathing hitch occasionally as small tugs would pull free some of the slimmer fragments. Diligently, he trimmed as careful a path as he could to avoid agitating the larger pieces, eventually reaching the collar.

“Well, that’s a small mercy,” he muttered, and lightly traced a finger over the telltale indent left behind by her ink tank’s inlet siphon, the space around it completely untouched by shrapnel. “Though I suppose you’d’ve noticed it a lot sooner if you tried to put your tank on over the stuff in your back.”

“I don’t… know how it’s even there,” Eight admitted. “Shouldn’t it have been left behind when I got splatted?”

“Same reason we don’t end up naked after a dip in the ink, I think,” Casca mused. “I don’t think even Inkling science has figured out why we’re ink and not ink at the same time. I mean, think about it. I can spit a wad of ink the size of my head onto a solid stone floor, turn into a squid slightly larger than my upper body, and disappear into it leaving a bubble about the size of my fist. That same ink will, within an hour, dissolve into thin air, but we don’t.” His only response from Eight was a shrug.

A few more cuts in the fabric, and he set the scissors aside. “I’m going to start removing the jacket parts now,” he said softly. “If it starts hurting too much, say so, and I’ll stop and let you catch your breath, okay?”

Eight’s only reply was a wordless nod, and Casca cleared his throat. Carefully, he began peeling back the first section, wincing slightly as he could see slivers of the shrapnel pluck at the skin of her back as it lifted free, leaving pinpricks and small wells of blood across her back. To her credit, Eight remained almost completely silent, the only sign of her discomfort her slightly labored breathing as he carefully sectioned off her jacket and set the segments in the bowl.

Casting a glance down the length of her back, Casca peered at the waistband of her skirt. The lionfish’s share of the shrapnel was concentrated just at the upper curve of her backside, which he reasoned matched with the placement of the explosive. Carefully, he segmented that off as well, pulling it away.

“Easy part done,” he muttered, picking up the forceps. “Now the tedious part.”

Carefully, meticulously, Casca started from Eight’s shoulders and worked his way down the length of her back, identifying and carefully plucking out shards of shiny black polymer and dropping them into the bowl.

“So, about that hair thing,” he said at length, still focused on the task at hand. “I’m not sure if my surprise made it clear, but Inklings can’t move our hair like that.”

“Is that why your hair is so thin?” Eight asked through gritted teeth. “I wondered why Inkling hair is flat, but Octoling hair is round. I thought it was pulled too tight.”

Pausing briefly, Casca thought about it. “Yeah, I think that’s probably part of it. I know some Inklings with longer hair can move it a little, or can wrap it around something with their hands and then hold it in place with their hair, but it has to be really long.” After a moment, he hummed. “Maybe that’s the reason you guys can make Octarians out of your hair and we can’t.” _At least, I don’t think we can. ...I should ask someone about that._

Eight tilted her head somewhat, and out of the corner of his eye, Casca saw a lone blue fore-tentacle curve up lazily, periscoping to point in his direction as he let a shard of polymer drop into the bowl. His eyes fixed on it, watching the tentacle track his movements as he conspicuously rotated left, then right, then halfway back to the left again, before the tentacle swiveled to point at the mirror in the corner.

Looking in the mirror, Casca could see himself reflected in it, and Eight’s eyes mirthfully watching him through the reflection. The tip of her other fore-tentacle lifted from the bed, wiggling in a little wave at his reflection.

Shaking his head, Casca smiled, before going back to shrapnel removal, now halfway down the small of her back. Gingerly, Eight lifted her upper half, and he paused in his work as she pulled the tattered remnants of her jacket off and tossed it aside before folding her arms and resting her head on them.

“You can continue,” she said after a moment, and he noticed she was watching him still, through the reflection.

“I’m impressed,” he admitted after a few more minutes of careful work.

"Hm?”

“I’ve been counting. Thirty-two pieces of shrapnel so far, and you haven’t even so much as whimpered.” He glanced up at the mirror; she was still watching him. “Not surprised at this point, but still impressed. You’re tough as nails. Considering everything you’ve managed to pull off, how come you didn’t have elite status in the Octarian army?”

“I’m… not sure,” Eight said after a while. “With some of the Mem Cakes, I thought… some of my memories, I feel like I was. But others, I wasn’t.” She huffed a sigh that only slightly hitched as Casca pulled a particularly ugly shard free. “I barely remember our fight from a week ago. I woke up to an alarm, I suited up, I went to the site of the alarm, I saw you, I attacked…” She sighed again, and shook her head. “And then nothing, until the Cap’n woke me. My memory of that day feels more like pictures in a book.”

Casca frowned. “I remember it pretty vividly, though my perspective was obviously different. Construction company called us in to investigate a rusty kettle that had been uncovered. We showed up on site, I went down into the kettle, found myself on some kind of rusty platform. Less than a minute later you superjumped in.” Plucking the last shard from her back, he carefully pushed down the remnants of the back of her skirt, feathering his fingertips across the area he’d had to cut away to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “Looks like that’s the last of the shrapnel. Stay put, next I need to clean.”

Snipping a swatch of gauze, he used it to quickly and carefully dab up the blood that peppered her back, and dropped the swatch into the bowl before soaking a second swatch in the rubbing alcohol. “This is going to be cold at first, and then feel like your back is on fire,” he warned, looking her in the eye through the mirror’s reflection. “It’s not, but you might hear some sizzling. That just means it’s doing what it’s supposed to.”

Eight nodded, and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and let it out slow. “Alright.”

Just as before, Casca started at her shoulders, working his way much more quickly down the length of her back. Her brow furrowed and her breathing quickened, but Eight continued to remain silent as he worked.

“Back to the story, you came flying in at me with a warcry and swinging an octobrush like you were gonna splat me from force alone. I barely got out of the way, and I know I heard something break below us when you landed.” He smiled, not completely aware that he was doing so. “It was honestly a wonder to watch, even if you _were_ trying to cut me in half with something as wide as I am tall.

“I couldn’t get a shot off on you, every time I thought I’d backed off enough you were right back on me, and when I used an Inkjet, you just ducked behind cover and stayed hidden until it ran out, then came right back at me the moment my feet touched the ground. Eventually I just decided I’d try and pin you down instead.”

“Pin me down?” Eight echoed, and as he glanced up, he swore her face colored a bit. _Probably just the light._

“Yeah. I led you over a box, and jumped off back to the center of the platform, to try and get you to jump on me. As soon as your feet left the box, I tried to Splashdown, but my timing was off. I wanted to come down on top of you, but instead I came down at the same _time_ as you. Ended up punching us both right through the floor.” Another dip, another pass of the rubbing alcohol, and he prepared another two swatches of gauze, using one to pat her back dry. “Pretty sure we both hit enough pipes on the way down to rack up a jackpot, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up on a mesh walkway hanging over a subway station and feeling like I fell face-first down a flight of punches.”

Setting aside the drying gauze, Casca picked up his ink tank, popped the lid off, and carefully tipped its contents into the second bowl. “Here comes the part that doesn’t suck so much.” Soaking the last swatch of gauze in the ink, he began to gently work it into her skin, using his free hand to massage the ink gingerly across the cuts and dips across her back. Almost immediately, he could see her body absorbing the ink, the deep cobalt blue soaking into the chestnut brown skin of her back and leaving behind only pale dots and thin lines, a constellation that to the untrained eye might be mistaken for freckles. _The view certainly doesn’t suffer for it,_ he found himself thinking idly, as he worked the ink into her skin like a balm.

“After all that pain, I’d imagine this feels a lot better, huh?” He asked with a chuckle.

Eight didn’t say anything, and he paused in his ministrations, looking up at her reflection. “Eight?” Her eyes had drifted closed, and with his palm against her back, he could feel the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, deep and slow. _Well, I can let her nap while I finish this, I suppose._

Another layer of ink massaged into Eight’s skin later, Casca dropped the blue-stained gauze into the now empty ink bowl, admiring his handiwork for a moment before packing up the medical supplies and putting them away. A small trash bag from the bathroom was sufficient for the shrapnel and jacket strips, wrapped in the fabric of what was left of the rest of the jacket to prevent it from poking through the plastic. Taking the bowls back to the kitchen and dropping the tied-off bag into the trash, he was surprised to find a small stack of clothes sitting on the marble countertop, with a cheery yellow note on top, the writing on it neat and slightly rounded, as if written with an intentional flourish.

Casca and Eight,

We realized you two probably haven’t eaten anything since

this morning, so we left a little something for you in the refrigerator.

I know it’s not much, but Pearl said you’d like it.

Think of it as a housewarming gift! ❤

-Marina

(Flip for Pearl’s note!)

Quirking an eyebrow, Casca flipped the note over. While less florid in design, Pearl’s penmanship was just as neat, the familiar mechanical precision of her handwriting a stark contrast to the informal tone of the words it conveyed.

Yo, in case there’s nothing there left over that Eight can wear

tomorrow, Marina let me raid her closet. Jeans and a t-shirt might

not be the freshest but it beats gogo boots and pleather. Shoes in the

entryway. Jackie will pick you up at 10. Catch ya!

-P

_I didn’t hear them come in… why didn’t they say anything?_

“Something wrong?” Eight asked from behind Casca, and he whirled around to face her, his entire face heating up rapidly. She was standing in the hall, arms folded at the elbows, and doing absolutely nothing to cover her exposed chest. If anything, her posture almost drew the eye toward her modest, cobalt-peaked bust. _...those change color too? FOCUS, CASCA._ He tore his eyes away, first up to her face, then off to the side, practically throwing the bowls and note on the table to whip his own shirt off and hold it out to her, blurting “SHIRT” with all the eloquence of a brick.

“...you’re pale.”

Suddenly self-conscious about his working-squid’s tan, Casca rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t get out much,” he admitted, his wits coming back to him as he spoke. “I spent a couple years doing part-time work for a construction company when I came to Inkopolis, before I met the Cap’n. Been chasing zapfish and fighting ever since. Haven't really had time to even out.”

The shirt was suddenly tugged out of his hand, and Eight brushed past him. “You look good,” she said simply. By the time he’d turned around, she was already wearing the shirt, and was reading the note, her lips moving almost imperceptibly. _She’s picked up Inkling script pretty fast. Wonder if the Cap’n helped her._ His eyes wandered down only briefly, drawn by the exposed strip of skin between the bottom hem of the shirt, and he realized only then that she’d opted to do away with the skirt altogether, leaving her in a pair of functional black panties. Lest he stare (or be caught staring) Casca moved toward the sink.

“...I wonder why they didn’t tell us they were here,” she mused.

“I didn’t hear them come in either,” he admitted. “Suppose I _was_ pretty distracted.” Setting the bowls in the sink, Casca opened the fridge to see what they’d left.

Inside was a plate with a stack of half-cut sandwiches, eight halves in total, and two bottles of green tea. He didn’t even wait to pull the plate out, sticking one of the sandwiches halfway in his face before grabbing the plate with one hand and the two bottles by the necks with with other.

He turned around, bumping the fridge door shut with his hip, and froze at the sight of Eight leaning against the countertop, watching him with a wry smile.

“...fon’ yu jujj ne.”

Rather than respond, Eight reached over and plucked one of the sandwiches from the stack, and after a cursory examination of the contents, took a bite, though nowhere near as large as the one Casca had taken.

Then her eyes lit up like a Splatfest, and the sandwich slice was gone almost before he could set the plate down.

In short order (after a coughing fit and a momentary explanation of what, exactly, a “bologna and cheese sandwich” was) the two polished off their housewarming gifts, and Casca busied himself washing the dishes while Eight examined the clothes they’d left.

As he ran a dishrag around the inside of the ink bowl, Casca felt a presence at his shoulder, and looked to find Eight staring with a mixture of apprehension and surprise at what he was doing.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” She asked, still not taking her eyes off his hands, and he realized she was referring to the steady stream of warm water pouring over them as he rinsed the bowl.

“No? It’s not hot enough to scald or anything, I mean, and the pressure’s nowhere near enough to cause damage.” He held up a hand, flexing it to demonstrate. To just past his wrists, his skin had flushed pink from the warmth, but other than that was unchanged.

Curious, she took his hand, blue fingertips dancing hesitantly across his skin at first, before more firmly gripping his palm and turning it this way and that. “It’s… fresh water?” She muttered, and it clicked in his head as he turned the water flow off with his other hand.

“Filtered and treated, but yeah, it is. How do Octarians bathe?" He asked, curiously.

"Seawater," she said, simply, and turned her attention to him, letting his hand go. "A rag, basin, and soap. It stings, but it's still necessary. Fresh water is only for drinking." She nodded toward the sink. "We use gloves for washing anything other than ourselves."

Casca hummed as he went back to washing the bowls, well aware that Eight was watching his hands as he did. "We bathe in fresh water since it won’t sublimate you unless it’s hot enough, or you’re too worn out to hold shape, and Inkopolis has water treatment plants that make water safer for us to drink and even take baths with than untreated water.” After a moment, he cast a glance her way. “I guess you’ve never had a good hot bath before then, have you?”

Eight gave him a skeptical look, her eyes searching his for a few moments, before shaking her head.

—

“Y-you’re sure it’s safe.” She was still watching him for any sign of pain or discomfort, as if he hadn’t been sitting in steaming water up to his chest for a good two minutes at this point. Opening an eye, he breathed a long-suffering sigh through his nose.

He knew he needed to be patient; he’d told himself as much a dozen times now, even as he explained the basics, convinced her to try putting her hand in the warm running water, and (after three straight minutes of him red-faced, explaining that Inklings generally don’t bathe together past a certain age, because _reasons)_  eventually gave in and showed her how to use the shower stall.

It was almost silly, how she’d been through scenarios and tests that he was certain he’d have trouble with himself, yet she was afraid of a little water. Then again, he couldn’t fault her that. _Suppose I’d be the same if I hadn’t grown up bathing like this._

“You said yourself that it felt _really good_ standing under the shower,” he prompted. “The water didn’t hurt you then, and it won’t hurt you now.” She frowned, her tentacles pulling in slightly. He could already see the argument forming in her mind: _it wasn’t deep water, it was just a spray_.

“Maybe this will convince you,” he said, took a deep breath, pinched his nose shut, and laid back in the bathtub, submerging himself completely.

After several seconds underwater, he opened his eyes, peering up at Eight, who was leaned over the surface of the tub, both hands clamped on the side tight enough he could see her knuckles turn pale. His tentacles bobbed toward the surface like odd blue seaweed.

After a solid thirty seconds of submersion, as his lungs began to tingle, he finally sat back up, breaking the surface of the water with a gasp. She immediately grabbed at his head and shoulders, nearly pulling him out of the tub as she checked for signs of decohesion.

“Eight. Eight, look, I’m fine. It’s fine.” He caught her hands after a moment, holding them still and locking eyes with her. “I have literally bathed like this at least once a week for the last fifteen years.” _I should probably leave out the closer-to-a-month thing I did back when the Great Zapfish disappeared._

“...i-if you’re sure,” she said after a few moments, and he gave her hands a light squeeze. It seemed to soothe her frayed nerves a bit.

“You’ll be okay. You scrubbed down in the shower just fine, without any problems, remember?” He prompted again, and she nodded slowly. “I promise you, I will never intentionally put you at risk.”

Looking down for a moment, Eight took a deep breath, held it, let it out slow. He was beginning to become accustomed to that pattern, he noticed, unconsciously mimicking it himself as she did so, and he released her hands as she stood up, tactfully averting his eyes.

He felt the shift in the water as she gingerly set a foot in the tub, heard her breath hitch at the sensation of warmth traveling up her leg, and held up a hand for her. “Careful not to slip.” Her hand gripped his immediately, almost too tight, and her weight on it shifted as she lowered herself gingerly into the water, her breath leaving her in a shocked gasp as she fully sat down, her back against his.

“There you go,” Casca crooned as her hand slipped out of his, now that she was situated. “Take a second to breathe.” She certainly took his advice, deep, steady breaths that he could almost feel through her back, and he glanced to the side as he felt something curl over his left shoulder and grip onto it.

 _That’s a little weird,_ came the thought as he realized she was holding his shoulder with one of her tentacles, but shuffled away the thought. “How’s it feel?” he asked instead, giving the tentacle a reassuring pat.

“ _Good_ ,” Eight purred after a moment, the word practically oozing out. “It feels… warm. Like… like an all-over hug.” He chuckled, and leaned his head back against hers. Seated as they were, the difference in their heights was much more apparent, and she only made it moreso as her tentacle released his shoulder only to lift and rest itself across the top of his head, the end of it just peeking into view over his forehead.

“I still can’t get over that you can do that,” he said at length, reaching up to give the end of the tentacle a light tug, and he felt more than heard Eight’s laugh in response, the sound vibrating through his back. If he concentrated, he could even feel her hearts beating. _She can probably feel mine too._

“I never knew Inklings can’t,” she replied, and he felt the other back tentacle begin to toy with his tentacles, where they hung loose over his shoulders. “Your hair’s almost as big as mine now.”

“Yeah, the heat does wonders for ink flow,” he said with a slight nod. “Give it a bit and yours’ll get bigger too. It’s good for relaxing your hair after keeping it tied up for a while.”

They lapsed into companionable silence for some time, broken only by the occasional sprinkle of water as Eight idly scooped handfuls and let it trickle back into the bath.

“Thank you,” she said softly, and Casca snapped out of the doze he’d fallen into. “What for?” He felt her tentacles grow still, no longer toying with his, but rather wrapping lightly around them.

“For… everything. Taking care of me. Showing me this. Being patient.” She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Everything has been so much, all at once, and I’m just… glad that you’re here.”

He couldn’t stop smiling if he wanted to, at that.

After a good twenty minutes, they got out of the bath, keeping a careful distance between them as they toweled off, backs to one another, even as Eight poked fun at the absurdity of it all. “It’s not like we haven’t already seen everything by now,” she teased. “Octolings in a squad bathe together all the time.”

“Then why did the discussion earlier about me running around naked make you blush so hard?” Casca prodded, and Eight briefly sputtered. “I-it was unexpected! A-and they were talking about putting you in lingerie, a-and…” She paused as she heard him chuckling, and huffed. “It’s different,” she grumbled, finally, and he could hear the swish of the towel being put to work again.

As he was toweling himself off, Casca couldn’t quite keep himself from glancing at the reflection in the mirror, his eyes tracing the curve of her back as she worked the towel in between her tentacles. She was as built as one would expect of a seasoned soldier, particularly one who wielded an Octobrush as freely as she had when they’d fought before. Her arms and shoulders were lean and toned, the muscles of her back rolling under her skin as she dried her head. If it came down to raw strength, Casca was certain Eight had him beat by a long shot. _She could probably swing_ _me_ _around as hard as she swung that brush._ He wasn’t so sure he wanted to ponder the part of him that seemed to like that idea.

As he continued his distracted examination, he noticed she’d slowed in her drying, and had half-turned, facing toward the back of the bathroom, looking at something. After a moment, it clicked: Eight was looking at _him_ , doing much the same thing he’d just been doing, just without the aid of a mirror.

Suddenly, he was feeling a lot more self-conscious again. He wasn’t an avid exerciser, though he knew he was certainly in decent shape from all the work he did as Agent Three, and the last week of scrounging for whatever he could find that qualified as food in that salt-dipped facility had certainly helped him shed the few extra pounds he’d gained during the comparative downtime that followed Octavio’s imprisonment, but he wasn’t a trained-from-childhood warrior like Eight, even if he had the scarring from past battles to claim otherwise.

Clearing his throat, Casca flipped his towel down and tied it around his waist. “Pearl said some of my parents’ old clothes should still be in one of these rooms,” he said after a moment, noting as he did that she snapped out of her own investigations and began quickly toweling the rest of herself off.

“Did your parents stay here often?” Eight asked, and Casca shrugged. “They’d stop in once or twice a week, depending, but they only stayed the night maybe once a month. Sometimes they’d drop by for a change of clothes if something happened, someone spilled something, or they were in town for personal business but dad had a last-minute meeting, or whatever.”

Stepping out of the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom they’d used for the impromptu surgery. “This was “their” room. Pearl didn’t like being in the big house alone, so we more or less shared the other room. Bed’s a bit smaller in there, though.” In the reflection in the corner mirror, he caught a glimpse of her again as she rounded the corner after him. She’d tied her towel around her waist, same as he did, and he pulled his eyes away, quickly turning to the dresser.

He began to rifle through the drawers, silently willing the blush on his face to go away as he felt Eight step up at his elbow to watch. “Slacks… more slacks, I think these were mom’s… dress shirts… sock drawer… underwear, here we are. Pick what you like.”

The drawer’s contents were plain, as he’d expected. A neatly folded stack of plain white cotton boxers, next to a neatly folded stack of plain white cotton t-shirts, next to a neatly folded stack of plain white cotton panties, and a stack of plain white bras. Tidy, regimented, not a thread out of place, just like his parents.

“Not much to choose from,” Eight noted, and Casca nodded, selecting a pair of boxers from the stack and tugging them on under his towel. They weren’t as snug as he liked, but as long as he didn’t plan on doing any acrobatics in them, they’d do. “Yeah, like I said, what they had here is mostly just for emergencies. Tomorrow we’ll get you some proper clothes to wear, and I can get my stuff from my apartment.”

Casca pulled off his towel, folding it over his arm before grabbing the chair and dragging it back to the corner it came from. When he turned around, Eight was holding her towel out to him. He’d almost expected her to throw on just panties and be done with it, but she’d mercifully opted to wear a tee as well.

Seeing his eyes flick down, she smirked. “Since you seem to be afraid of my breasts, I figured I’d save you the trouble,” she teased, and his face grew hot as he snagged the towel out of her hand and brushed past.

“M’not afraid of them,” he grumbled, though her soft chuckle did bring a smile to his face as he hung up the towels.

Rounding the corner again, he blinked as he realized Eight wasn’t in the room anymore, and turned to find her standing in the doorway of his old room, looking around. The room was just as sparsely decorated as the master bedroom, a simple paisley wallpaper pattern in earthtones, a basic desk and chair, a dresser and a closet, the latter standing open and empty. Nothing adorned the walls, save a simple green curtain over the window, and a modestly sized bed sat against the wall in the corner, simple brown bed sheets crisp and untouched, matching those across the hall.

“Feel free to pick whichever room you want,” Casca suggested, and she spun around to look at him. “If you’d rather take the bigger bed, that’s fine too. The one in my apartment’s about the same size as the one in there, so it’s not like I’d be downgrading,” he added, pointing with his chin in the vague direction of the bed in question.

Eight’s fingers laced together in front of her, and her eyes fell to focus on them, her toes digging reflexively into the plush beige carpet. “A-actually… I don’t want to be a bother, or anything, but I don’t… I don’t really want to be alone, right now,” she said, her voice petering almost to a whisper. “It doesn’t need to be forever, or anything,” she added quickly, looking up at him. “I just… if I wake up, and I’m alone, I don’t know if…” she trailed off, and Casca nodded.

“I get you. Suppose it’s better for both of us, anyway,” he said at length, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, and Eight tilted her head quizzically. “I wasn’t exactly getting the best sleep down there either, constantly thought I was going to get found by one of those creepy silent Octolings. Knowing someone else is there should help me out too.” Turning, he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Let’s get to bed, then. Jackie’s coming to pick us up at ten tomorrow, and it’s already almost midnight.”

Eight practically bounded after him, almost forgetting to switch off the light in the other room as she did so.

As Eight wormed her way between the covers, Casca fiddled with an old battery-powered analog clock sitting on the nightstand by the bed. “Alarm clock?” She asked, and he nodded, flicking the bell hammer, its faint _ping!_ a far cry from the sound it would produce in the morning. Setting the alarm down, he turned on the table lamp, and moved to turn off the ceiling light.

“I’ve set the alarm for eight in the morning, should give us a full night’s sleep, and plenty of time to get ready tomorrow.” Returning to his side of the bed, Casca slipped into the sheets and flicked off the lamp, settling in on his back, and breathed a long, slow sigh of comfort. _Bed. Finally._

Only a few moments passed before he felt the sheets shift, and Eight’s hand found his beneath the blankets, fingers threading into his own. Smiling, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze, which she returned as his eyes drifted shut, sleep already beginning to take hold.

“Good night, Eight.”

“Good night, Casca.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grabby! Head! Tentacles!
> 
> It's my favorite little headcanon about Octolings. You ever notice how Inkling hair is flatter, while Octoling hair is more round? Octolings can make Octarians from hair cuttings, but there's not even the slightest mention of trying that with Inkling hair, so maybe there's biological explanations for it. Plus, I like the idea of their hair being something of a mood barometer. Prone to flicking a bit when agitated, or curling inward if they're nervous, or gripping at things if they're bored, that sort of thing. (It was hinted at in chapter 1, as well, with Eight using her hair to adjust the collar of the cloak, but Casca hadn't seen that.)
> 
> This chapter was a bit of a bear to write, and I'm still not completely happy with it, but I've gotten it into a state where I don't *hate* it, so I'll call that a win and call it a day. It's 3 in the morning, I need sleep too.
> 
> Up next on Whispers in the Dark: Dreams, demons, and discussion.


	4. Interlude 1: Darkness and a Heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S BACK
> 
> This interlude/mini-chapter sat in an incomplete state for a while because I've been waffling on what to do with the story (I have an outline written, but part of me wanted to take the story in a different direction entirely, and now I've settled on a third largely unrelated direction since then but it's not entirely off from my original plan) and also because I've been dealing with the glorious life of unemployment in a speedbump nowhere-town.
> 
> While I planned for Interlude 1 to be released with a full chapter to follow it, the unintentional hiatus brought on by said waffling and subsequent realization of a much better fic title than "To Hurt, To Heal" (which, while somewhat poetic, was also kinda eh because it makes it sound more like a domestic drama or something which isn't going to be the focus) ultimately has me releasing this interlude now, instead of along with the next chapter. There'll be a few minor edits to previous chapters as well (already done, by the time you've read this) but it's just nitpicky stuff or minor inconsistencies. Still, if it's been a while since you've read the story, feel free to go back and give it another go!
> 
> Chapter writing music: Toru Minegishi - Mystery File, from Splatune
> 
> Edit 12/17/2018 (or 17/12/2018 if that's your thing): I learned how to make tooltips for text! Hover over any Cyrillic script for a translation!

It can not move.

It can not see.

It can not speak.

It can feel the body. The eye, the hand, the mouth, the ear. But nothing responds.

It knows that there is a reason why. It knows it is weak. It does not know why it knows.

It can feel. Warmth. A pressure, not stifling, but persistent. Distantly, it feels something gripping, something pulling.

It can feel the hearts, beating in darkness.

It wants to see. It tries to open the eye, but it remains closed.

It wants to move. It tries to lift the hand, but the hand does not move.

Something else moves.

It can hear something. Soft sounds. Troubled sounds. Something moving nearby. The pulling is stronger now.

The grip is almost painful.

It feels a stirring. The other one is rising.

It fades. Hides.

It knows it is weak.

It knows the other one is not.

It will wait.

It will get stronger.

 

_The silence was stifling. Soft clicking sounds, a gentle squeak every five seconds, everything sterile and mechanical and precise as the ticking of a clock, but always, always, deathly silent in between, no grunts of effort, no sigh of relief, not so much as a sniff or a sneeze. They moved like ghosts, specters; they were no living things, not truly, but a mere facsimile of life, a perfected, carbon-copy precision. He had to time his movements carefully: four steps, place the device, four steps, retrieve the next, four steps, place the device,_ **_there:_ ** _the delivery octoling arrived through the door, two, three, four, five, the door clicked shut._

_She reached the target point, released the empty cart, grabbed the full one, turned, twelve steps, and the door opened._

_He had to be quick._

_One, muscles coiled now sprang alive, two, he arced through the air like a cerulean shadow, three, he landed less than a step from the door, four,_

_“_ **_No!_ ** _”_

_A pull, harsh, imprecise, a hand gripping his right with all the force it can muster. Dead eyes, too many dead eyes, a dozen soulless eyes, all focused on him. Tools, lifted in their hands, shining sinisterly in the sterile light. The hand gripping his own, pulling again. An insistent tug. No sound, even as he struggled, tried to pull free, tried to shift forms, anything. Gripping harder, almost painful._

**_A single, quiet sob._ **

Deep in darkness, Agent Three snapped awake, his civilian self instantly buried by the once-dulled self-preservation instincts he honed to a razor’s edge in the underground over the past week as a sound broke the silence in the room. As suddenly as he awoke, his body’s natural bioluminescence did too, cobalt spots on the ends of his tentacles pulsing faintly in the dark to the rhythm of his heartbeats, his ears straining for the source of the sound even as he became aware of something tugging lightly on his right hand, squeezing it tightly.

The sound happened again, something between a whimper and a cry, and Agent Three’s eyes shot to a quivering shadow in the dark, a mere two feet to his right.

_Oh._

Peeling back the covers with his left hand, Casca frowned. Eight was curled tightly into a ball, clinging to his hand as if it were her only lifeline in the darkness. He could see her tentacles flexing inward every few seconds, accompanied by her shivers as she uttered another whimper.

Quickly, Casca hauled himself up and onto his knees, noting as he did that she abruptly stilled. “Eight.” His voice almost didn’t come out, and he swallowed hard as he laid his free hand on her shoulder and gave it a light shake. “Eight, wake up.”

Almost immediately, she stilled, and Casca wondered if she was coming awake. “Eight, are you—” his words were cut off with a grunt as she shot up at him like a sprung trap, an unintelligible sound that his mind distantly registered as slurred Octarian grinding out of her as her hands clutched at his shoulders and tried to pin him down.

Their momentum, however, had carried him half off the bed. Feeling himself fall, Casca clutched at Eight’s forearms reflexively, one leg trying to flail and failing due to the covers, the other getting caught in Eight’s as the two of them went over backwards onto the floor in a heap, Eight’s forehead connecting with Casca’s nose in the process.

Eyes watering, Casca held tighter to Eight’s forearms as she tried to pull away, babbling in Octarian and kicking her legs. “Eight! Eight, calm down! It’s me! It’s Casca!” _Shit, what was the phrase? What did the Cap’n say to use?!_ His mind flailed for the phrase he’d been taught as a last resort, a plea for clemency once used in the Great War by those who were caught in the warzone and unable to fight back. “ _И хаве бэн дефеатед анд бег мерсй оф ёу!_ ” he muttered as his thoughts realigned, and echoed himself a moment later, louder than before. 「 _I have been defeated and beg mercy of you!_ 」

Eight’s movements stilled immediately, wide eyes staring down into Casca’s in the dim moonlight peeking through the curtains. He was practically folded in half on the floor, his lower back still pressed against the side of the bed while his shoulders were pinned to the carpet, the both of them breathing heavily, though his own breath came out in a slight wheeze due to the position.

“К-Каска?” she finally breathed—it took him a second too long to realize she’d said his name, the unfamiliar inflections of Octarian making it feel like he'd misheard it—and he let go of her forearms as she carefully untangled herself from him. “I—that was—where did you learn that?” Eight finally managed, arms reflexively folding over her chest, fingertips clutching at her shoulders.

Gingerly rubbing his nose, he pulled his leg free of the tangled covers and stood up, straightening his twisted shorts as he turned on the table lamp. “The Cap’n taught it to me, back when I first became an agent,” he said after a moment, taking notice of her posture. “Said it might keep me alive if I got overrun.” After a pregnant pause, he frowned. “You were having a nightmare,” he offered. “Are you okay?”

Quietly, Eight shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, tentacles pulling tight around her face as she shrank in on herself. “I… I was in the Metro... I was…” her breathing began to speed up, and he could see her magenta claws digging into her shoulders. _Shit._

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Casca said quickly, stepping forward and putting his hands on her shoulders, at a loss for what to do. “You’re not down there, you’re safe, you’re—” and suddenly she was clinging to him like her life depended on it, her arms pulling him tight against her body. He narrowly avoided accidentally returning the earlier headbutt as she pulled him to her, and for the barest moment felt panic bubble up in his chest, before another memory from elsewhere in the same house struck him.

_A storm in the night. Small hands, fisted in the back of his shirt, sobs muffled by his chest. Wet and cold, but already warming up. “I don’t want to be alone. Not after today. Please.”_

Mechanically, Casca’s hands responded before he’d ordered them to, one hanging from her opposite shoulder, the other running up the length of her back with a slow, firm pressure. “It’s okay,” he whispered into her shoulder, and felt her squeeze him just a little tighter, her tentacles reflexively clinging to whatever they could get a grip on, his hand, his shoulder, his head. Whenever her grip would shift, he’d feel the tremble in the limbs. _Adrenaline crash,_ his subconscious offered up. _Reminds me of how I felt after I fought my first Great Octoweapon._

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that, but after some time, he could feel her heartbeats slow again through the hand on her back. Slowly, her grip on him ebbed, and he loosened his grip in turn, stepping back but keeping his hands on her shoulders, looking up at her through the veil of her fore-tentacles. “Better?” He asked, almost a whisper, and she nodded, managing a weak smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, her arms pulling in to grip at her shoulders again, instead resting them atop his own hands. “Don’t be,” Casca replied, and gave her shoulders a light squeeze before letting go. “It happens. I’m sure you’ll be doing the same for me at some point.” _I hope not._ He resisted the urge to bite his tongue for that thought. “C’mon, let’s get back to bed.”

Wordlessly, Eight nodded, and in short order they got the covers straightened. As he reached for the light, he paused, looking over toward Eight, who nodded.

Once the light was out, Casca climbed back into the bed, but when he reached for where he expected Eight’s hand to be, he found nothing.

“...c-can… can I…” she muttered in the dark, and he felt the bed shift as she scooted a little closer. Rolling on his side, Casca gazed at the formless shape of her in the dark, his eyes still adjusting to the lack of light. “...nevermind,” she said after a few seconds more, just as her unspoken request registered in his mind.

“C’mere then,” he said softly, internally thanking the darkness because he was certain his face had gone red from ear to ear. In the dim glow of his tentacles, he barely made out the surprise on her face, and the owlish blinking that accompanied it.

“...wh- _oh_. Um. Okay.”

Hesitantly, Eight scooted toward him, and after a minute or two of arranging, they slotted together, her head resting on his right arm while her own wrapped lightly around his back, legs tangling together haphazardly as she tucked her forehead into the crook of his neck, tentacles playing about his shoulders for a moment before finding his own and coiling about them.

A thought came unbidden to his mind, then, and Casca huffed a short chuckle at it as Eight yawned. “Now _I’m_ the tall one,” he muttered, and she sputtered a laugh.

As they fell silent, and sleep began to overtake them again, Eight mumbled something that took a second to register. “Your Octarian is… bad.”

He snorted, and let his left arm drift to the small of her back. “Considering I learned it two and a half years ago and haven't said it since, I think I managed just fine. You understood me.”

“Fair enough.” Snuggling a little closer, Eight released a drawn-out sigh. “Good night, Casca.”

“Sweet dreams, Eight.” Closing his eyes, Casca focused on the feeling of Eight’s heartbeats, carried through the gentle pulse of her tentacles, wrapped around his own.

He didn’t dream again that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As articulated on my Tumblr and Twitter:  
> Me: Hm. How do I readily imitate the difference between Inkling and Octoling languages being largely semantic through use of katakana and hiragana without actually writing in Japanese?
> 
> Me to me: СЙРИЛЛИК АЛФАБЕТ МОДЕРФУКЕР 「CYRILLIC ALPHABET MOTHERFUCKER」  
> (thank the writing gods for 2cyr.com existing.)
> 
> (...oh no now I'm coming up with adorable accidental pet names that might happen in the future someone help)


	5. Interlude 2: Boneless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, the writin' machine is all spooled up again. I suppose two interludes in such a short time makes up for them being about half the length of my standard chapters. This one felt like it practically wrote itself, so I'm certain after I post it I'll find a dozen places where I used the same descriptive three times in a row and a billion internal continuity errors.
> 
> Chapter writing track: Dedf1sh - regret
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: A little mention of blood here.
> 
> Edit 12/17/2018 (or 17/12/2018): Instances of gratuitous Octarian now come with translations, if you're reading on desktop! Just hover your mouse over any Cyrillic text you see.

"G'niiiiight!" Pearl and Marina chimed together, both trying (and only Marina particularly succeeding) to stifle their giggling as Casca hauled Eight off like they were late for a show.

"Dorks," Pearl muttered softly as the pair slowed down near the entrance to the guest house.

"Don't be mean, Pearlie," Marina chided, but her tone was as affectionate as Pearl's, even as she tugged her hand and started walking toward the villa proper.

"I'm not bein' mean, they're adorable." Pearl's free hand fished her cellphone out of the pocket of her hoodie, quickly calling up the picture she'd snapped earlier: Casca and Eight, snoozing together in the back of the car, Eight's head on Casca's shoulder and his head resting on hers. "Can't wait to send this to Cap. He'll be stoked."

Marina rolled her eyes. "I swear, sometimes you're worse than the tabloids going on about us. "Are Off the Hook off the market?" "Is Pearl into girls or just pretending?" "This just in, Marina seen in the presence of a man, is Off the Hook over?" They were sleeping, Дарлинг, it doesn't mean anything."

"Nah, nah, I don't mean like that. Just to show that they seem to be getting along pretty well. You heard him just before we left, said Cass can be hard to read sometimes." She pocketed the phone again as they reached the front door, letting go of Marina's hand to dig out her keys. "'Sides, I remember he used to have trouble opening up to people. He's a great guy, but all the emotional availability of a brick." Her motions stilled as her hand landed on the doorhandle, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she was briefly lost in a memory

_a confused stare, a tilted head, corners of his lips pulled into a frown so small nobody else would've noticed, eyes searching for a punchline that wasn't there_

before coming back to herself and opening the door. "Seems whatever he's been doing since he left has helped, at least. That or he's a body-snatcher."

Marina frowned as she kicked her shoes off, leaving them in the shoe cupboard. "You don't think whatever Tartar did..."

Pearl shook her head. "Doubt it. Cap'd've spotted it if he was too different, and me an' Casca go back ten or so years, not counting the six he was gone. The hand holding's new, and he was never as quick to joke before, but the rest of him's definitely Casca, self-sacrificing doofus and all." Almost distractedly, she hung her golden crown on its wall hook, right next to the cracked and mended white-and-pink one, and tossed her keys into a small basket atop the shoe cupboard before starting to remove the oversized hoodie she was wearing. "The scars all over makes him look like some kinda action movie hero, though. Dude's beefed up since I knew him, too. He used to b— _shit, that's not it—_ he used to be a— _dammit_ —"

After a solid thirty seconds of watching Pearl struggle to extricate herself from the borrowed garment, Marina huffed an amused sigh and stepped in to help, carefully threading Pearl's oversized necklace through the head hole of the hoodie. "And this is why I always tell you to wear your own clothes instead of mine," she admonished softly as she helped Pearl navigate the soft cloth.

"Can't help it if your clothes are more comfy," Pearl grumbled as her head finally came out, four flat back tentacles standing like a second crown for a few seconds before relaxing back down again. Under the hoodie, she was wearing a simple white tee and denim shorts, the coloration almost matching Marina's halter top and jeans. "Besides, you didn't have to lend it to me. Still don't know how you weren't freezing to death up there."

"It wasn't that much colder than most nights at Slimeskin Garrison," Marina mused, and leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Pearl's head as she folded the hoodie over her arm, before heading for the kitchen. "Besides, I had you to cuddle up to if I got too cold."

"Hey, wait, you still have my phone." Pearl puttered after her, only to have the rhinestone-studded device held out to her in the grip of a long tentacle.

"You should check the closet and find something for Eight to wear tomorrow," Marina suggested as the phone was plucked from her tentacle's grip. "Do you think there's any food available in the guest house? Maybe we should make something for them."

"Yeah, nah, place hasn't been used in like a year," Pearl said as she headed towards the master bedroom. "And whatever you make, make some extra, I'm hungry too!" she added, the distance proving no hindrance to how well her voice carried.

Standing at the refrigerator with the door open, Marina contemplated the options available. She didn't really feel up to cooking a whole meal, but she was feeling peckish herself, and they'd polished off the leftovers from last night's dinner earlier that day for lunch. 「Sandwiches it is, then,」she mused in Octarian, and began transferring ingredients to the cutting board on the counter.

"Whadja say?" Pearl piped up as she came around the corner, a bundle of cloth in her hands. "Ooh, sandwiches. Noice."

"You answered your own question," Marina chuckled as she set out three plates and moved to the sink to wash her hands. "Come wash up and help me, you can prep the bread."

As the pair worked, they formed a simple yet efficient production line: spread the mayonnaise ( _not so much,_ Marina admonished, and Pearl flushed pink before scraping some off to add to the next slice), layer the bologna, sliced cheese and a pre-washed lettuce leaf, second slice of bread, cut into halved wedges, and onto the plate. "Something tells me they're gonna need plenty," Pearl noted. "Dunno what Casca was eating down there, but dude could always pack away food like he was eating for three."

"You were going to say something earlier about him," Marina prompted, and Pearl paused in her spreading, spoon hovering in the air for a moment. "Oh, right. Cass wasn't exactly scrawny when we were little, but he didn't work out much. Even if he was taller than me we could share clothes, he didn't stretch my shirts or nothin', but now he's all wide-set. If I didn't know him so well I might not'a thought it was him." She passed the slice over and fished a new one out of the bread bag, plopping a modest—for her, anyway—gob of mayonnaise onto it. "He also wasn't much of a fighter. His method of "fighting" was more or less to just take hits and try to pin his opponent down or just wait for them to get tired. Don't think I ever saw him throw a punch, and he rarely got angry."

"Hm." Marina pursed her lips for a moment, thinking back to the day Agent Three dueled DJ Octavio and won. "He's definitely changed, then. I was there when he fought Octavio, and I helped design several of the Great Octoweapons he destroyed. Nobody in the Octarian army believed the reports that it was just one Inkling taking us down, but I saw it with my own eyes."

She paused as she recalled the sight of Agent Three, his face a rictus of determined anger, fresh cuts across his arms and tentacles from the shrapnel of an Octorpedo that got too close, a trickle of blood cutting through a slash of bright purple ink down the side of his face as he alternated between wielding the broken bottom half of his ink tank like a slosher and scooping ink into it to fire red-streaked orange from his damaged Hero Shot one-handed at an incoming Octo Missile. She could still hear the sound of his hoarse voice cutting through the steady thump of the Inkantation, though the words would mean nothing to her until several months after, when she was learning Inkling from filched textbooks courtesy of Pearl. _I'll chase you all day, you son of a bitch! Get down here and fight me! You will never have Inkopolis!_

She shuddered, and went back to sandwich making. "Even after the Calamari Inkantation broke DJ Octavio's mind control on me, I couldn't help but be afraid, watching him fight. All of the propaganda depicting Inklings as frightening almost-people, walking destroyers of everything they saw, it all seemed so real, right up until the Octobot King came down and he walked over to Cap'n Cuttlefish to check on him. Then he just seemed... drained. Tired."

"Whoa whoa _whoa_ , hold up. Cuttlefish was there?" Pearl boggled, followed by a bit-back curse as a glop of mayonnaise fell to the counter. Seeing that Marina's focus was on the sandwiches in front of her, she quickly mopped it up with a finger and popped it into her mouth.

Marina nodded as she started stacking sandwich halves to the side of the plate she was working on, a neat little pyramid already formed on the plate intended for Eight and Casca. "DJ Octavio had captured him after picking up transmissions indicating the Cap'n was directing Agent Three. He was present at the battlefield. I think the DJ's intention was to make the Cap'n watch him kill Agent Three, I recall hearing them talking about something like that in the hour or so before the fight."

" _Dude._ Seems like there's a lotta carp I've missed. If that was back when the Great Zapfish disappeared the first time, I think that was when I was going through a breakup with... with my old band." Marina glanced over at the hesitation, but said nothing as Pearl popped the mayonnaise spoon in her mouth before screwing the lid shut and closing the bread. "Wahdya think, gween tea?"

"That should do," Marina nodded. As Pearl ferried the ingredients back to the fridge, she quickly washed the preparatory dishes and disposed of the cheese wrappers. "Do you think they'll like the sandwiches?"

"Where do you think I got my love of mayo from?" Pearl laughed. "Bologna and cheese with mayo was, like, the only thing we ever made for lunch back then. That and a bag of chips. Salt'n'vinegar for me, sour cream and onion for him. We lived off that stuff." Four bottles of green tea were set out in short order, and she grabbed a sandwich half from the smaller stack, sticking half of it in her face all at once with an exaggerated "homf!" before bounding up to sit on the countertop.

Marina rolled her eyes, taking a much more delicate bite of sandwich before padding toward the study. "I'll get something so we can write them a note."

By the time the note was written, half of the stack was already gone, and Pearl hopped off the counter and prepared to grab the delivery when her phone rang, a cheerful little tune that both recognized as the one assigned to Pearl's father. "Oop, Daddy musta heard about the helicopters," she grunted, picking up the phone and frowning at it. "Hope we didn't get anyone in trouble."

"Me too," Marina sighed, and reached for the clothes and plate. "You talk to him, I'll deliver the housewarming gift." Neatly stacking the lot together and gathering two of the tea bottles by the necks, she returned to the entryway, hooking a pair of sneakers out of the cupboard with her tentacles that she reasoned should fit Eight well enough and toeing into a pair of sandals for the walk. She could hear Pearl slipping into her Business Pearl voice in the kitchen, and worried her lower lip with her teeth as she opened the door with a back-tentacle and shuffled out.

「I suppose it'd be weird if they _didn't_ call about the statue in the bay,」she mused into the cool night air as she made the trip to the guest house. 「I hope those two are doing okay.」

As she stepped into the entryway of the guest house, she paused at the total silence that greeted her, and set the shoes down next to Eight's heels, carefully stepping out of the sandals and taking note of Casca's cloak on the hook. _They must be asleep already,_ she reasoned, tiptoeing to the kitchen to set the clothes and note down and putting the food in the refrigerator.

"After all that pain, I'd imagine this feels a lot better, huh? ...Eight?"

Blinking, she tilted her head, and carefully shifting to her octopus form, slunk down the hall to peer into the one bedroom with a light on in it.

Casca was standing over Eight, who was laying on her stomach, her top removed and her head resting on her arms, eyes closed. Her color had changed, now matching Casca's cobalt blue, and Marina's eyebrows pinched with worry as she saw the medical kit sitting on a chair next to the bed, a plastic bowl with what appeared to be strips of cloth and fragments of metal sticking up out of it beside the kit.

 _The test failure bombs,_ she realized with a start, and bit back the urge to speak, watching for only a moment longer as Casca carefully massaged blue ink into Eight's back, muscles gliding beneath the skin of his arms, which was peppered with a patchwork of scars, pale lines and pockmarks forming a constellation of injuries past. From what Marina could see, however, Eight was well and away in good hands, and even had a content half-smile on her lips.

 _I'll leave them be._ As silently as she'd approached, Marina slithered away again, only reverting to humanoid form when she reached the ledge of the entry way. Toeing into her sandals again, she carefully slipped out the front door, shutting it with hardly a sound, and smiled to herself as she made her way back to the villa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now you know why Casca and Eight didn't hear the delivery! Fun fact: the interlude title comes from my brain spitting out, in the format of that red-block-with-the-letter-B in it meme, "yeah can i get uhhh, Ｂoneless lesbians" while I was in the shower, coupled with the fact that this interlude follows Pearl and Marina.
> 
> 'Cause. Y'know. They _are._
> 
> I swear to cod, something about the way GDocs transfers to AO3's rich text editor makes italics before punctuation always spit out a space at the end (except when it doesn't, for no reason) and it's driving me nuts like a steering wheel belt buckle. I need to find another format to work with that can transition smoothly instead of having to re-edit a dozen billion times.
> 
> Up next on Whispers in the Dark: Eight's Big Day Out (or, _Casca is a horrible tour guide_ )


	6. Callus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, I need to stop teasing what's going to show up in the next chapter, because it's more likely to not happen for at least two. This chapter was supposed to be _faster_ , but _nooooo,_ I gotta go and write *checks OpenOffice* TEN THOUSAND AND EIGHT WORDS OVER THE SPAN OF TWO AND A HALF IN-WORLD HOURS.
> 
> ...although I may have intentionally inflated a sentence or two when I realized how close I was to 10008... and then tried _really hard_ to rearrange things to keep it there...

Between regimented training that she couldn’t recall, the nap she’d had during the ride to the villa, and the relative unfamiliarity of her surroundings, Eight found herself rapidly awake come morning, dim sunlight shining through the gaps in the green curtains around the room and filling the space with a warm glow. Immediately, her hearts leapt into her throat when she realized that she was snuggled warmly in Casca's arms, and she only dimly recalled asking if she could sleep next to him after the nightmare the night before.

No longer held in its grip, she could recall it safely: she was failing tests, left and right, and with each test, her body became less responsive, more sluggish, and more _pale_. This lead to more failed tests, and lead to more lethargic movement, and eventually she caught her reflection in the Metro train and found teal skin and blue tentacles staring back at her. She could feel her control slipping away, and clung as tightly as she could to whatever she could feel.

And then a voice had awakened her, a hand on her shoulder, and she could feel her body again, and something was grabbing her, and she had to fight back. _You will not take me. I will not become one of them. I won't go back there._

Then Casca had spoken something in Octarian, a phrase that tugged hard on a faded memory. _I have been defeated and beg mercy of you._ That phrase had stilled her panic as surely as a bucket of cold ink. Not just the shock of hearing Octarian spoken by someone else—though even the non-Inklings she'd met in the Metro seemed to speak Inkling fluently, it was the first instance of spoken Octarian she'd heard from someone other than herself since she'd awakened without her memories—but also, for some reason, those _precise words_ had brought an instinctive stop to her actions. Some part of her immediately understood, _this person is no longer a threat, and I would be in the wrong to hurt them._ She had a hazy memory of fighting an opponent, hearing that phrase in the clipped tones of an Inkling speaking unfamiliar Octarian, and immediately stopping her assault to signal a nearby arbitrator.

Eight found herself wondering if that memory was hers, or someone else's.

Silently, she took note of how little their positions had shifted in the night since falling asleep, losing her train of thought as she traced her eyes along the scars across what she could see of Casca's chest and arms. An idle wonder—among all the differences between Inklings and Octolings, everything inkstained on an Octoling below their hair was, apparently, just _pink_ on an Inkling—floated lazily to the surface as she did so, her fore-tentacles reasserting their gentle hold on his own as she lay in his arms. She could feel his pulse through them, comfortingly rhythmic and slow, and it helped calm her a little.

She couldn’t quite put a finger on why she felt so safe, lying there in Casca’s arms. He was Agent Three. He was the Scourge of the Octarian military, Hero of the Secret Zapfish War (per Cap’n Cuttlefish’s words, at least) and, presumably, she should consider him a threat, perhaps the highest threat, as an Octoling soldier. She’d been on the business end of his Hero Shot not once, but twice, even if she could only really remember the latter, and while she was told the first fight had been a stalemate, she had only barely squeaked by with a victory the second time.

She wasn’t even sure she’d earned that one, either: it wasn't really _him,_ just the Telephone puppeteering his body, a pale imitation of the real thing. Some part of her subconscious wasn’t satisfied with his defeat, but at that moment, taking up her Octoshot and challenging him again was the farthest thing from her mind, even if it only for a friendly duel.

(She certainly wasn’t dwelling on the fact that what _was_ closest to her mind at the moment was the soft, content hum Casca made before tucking his face a little further between the top of her head and the pillow in defiance of the gradually lightening room. Nope, definitely not.)

Yet for all the reasons she had to view him as a near-mythical soldier, her mind just as readily recalled that he grew up with Pearl, and they’d been close friends; how he’d given her his ink-resistant cloak without hesitation on the platform to keep her warm, and even let her keep it on all the way to the villa guest house; how he’d so meticulously and gently cared for her when the damage to her back was revealed, and patiently taught her how everything in the guest house’s bathroom worked, even stepping outside of his own comfort zone to do so (she felt a bit guilty for that, looking back, but anxiety and logic were rarely on speaking terms with one another, and besides, he'd acclimated to it rather quickly). He’d given her the shirt off his back, literally, without expecting even so much as a thank you in return.

Even when she'd panicked after the nightmare, even when she was certain she had hurt him in some way, that he would want nothing to do with her now that she had shown how volatile she was, he still showed concern, still held her tight until her shaking stopped, and held her close in the darkness as she drifted off. Casca had been nothing but kind to her. She wasn't a soldier in the Octarian military anymore. She was an Agent of New Squidbeak Splatoon, and Casca was perhaps the best damn Agent there was.

As her heartbeats gradually slowed back down to an acceptable level, Eight tilted her head back slightly, allowing herself a better look at… well, the side of his face, anyway. He had a downturned, angular nose, slashed across the bridge by the natural black “mask” that all Inklings had as well as a small scar just above it, and his lips formed a natural pout, giving him a pensive look even in his sleep. She could see a pale line running the length of his jaw that she’d not noticed before. There were also numerous small nicks and scratches, long healed, not nearly as pale as the one on his jaw, and she wondered how fresh that particular scar was.

Tracing another, more faded scar up from that one towards his left temple, she found it terminated cleanly at a point of discoloration beside his eye, and realized that where it ended was a broad, helical patch of pale green that she hadn’t noticed before, bordering his left eye between brow and cheek, and spreading all the way back to engulf his left ear with a thin gap in between the two segments of the helix. Between distance, darkness, and distraction, she’d not noticed it before. Hesitantly, she brought her left hand up between them, and gingerly traced the back of her fingers up his cheek and across the marking.

As far as she could tell, it felt just like the rest of his face. There was no shift in texture, no loss or gain of warmth; if anything, it was a bit smoother than the rest of his skin, but not unnaturally so. She’d had the unfortunate luck to get into hand-to-hand combat with one of the strange green Octolings during a particularly heated test down in the Metro, and she had been unnaturally cold, but Casca’s cheek and face were just as pleasantly warm as the rest of him.

As she continued to trace the marking on his face, Eight noticed out of the corner of her eye that the ends of Casca’s tentacles had begun to dimly glow to the rhythm of his pulse, and she was entranced with the phenomenon until she realized there was a teal eye peering half-lidded at her, just beyond the edge of her hand. Her breathing stilled as a distant whisper in her mind hissed _that's not Casca, that's Tartar, it's going to attack you, you're in danger_.

“Good morning,” Casca mumbled softly, his voice heavy with sleep, and Eight felt something do a backflip in her gut as her hearts resumed beating again. As her cheeks began to grow warm, she willed her own vocal cords to cooperate. “G-good morning. You… you have a... your face is marked,” she managed after a moment, wincing slightly as her voice came out almost more like a croak at first. “Some kind of green, around your eye.” As she said so, she gingerly traced the back of her knuckles along the marking. “Here… and here.”

Casca hummed, a sound that she felt as much as heard, and whatever'd backflipped before did it again. She was starting to think she was coming down with something. “Must be a stain from the Telephone slime,” he said at length, but made no attempt to move or dissuade her from continuing to trace the mark. “One more scar for the pile, I guess.”

They lapsed into companionable silence after that, with Casca watching her through his one exposed eye, the other effectively pressed into the pillow by his earlier somnolent nuzzle. Eight let her hand fall still, the back of her fingers resting just atop the crook of his jaw as she examined the curious plus-shaped dark green pupil of the teal eye looking back at her, still slowly expanding after its initial response to the light in the room. She didn’t miss the dusting of pink that bloomed across his cheeks, and she knew her own face was mirroring it.

She wasn’t sure how long they laid there like that, silently watching each other, examining the other's eyes. Their breathing was almost synchronized, shallow, but not labored at all, and it felt almost as if they were both afraid to break the stillness of it all. Working up the courage to speak again, Eight took a slow, deep breath.

She then shrieked when a cacophonous noise filled the air, at once reflexively shifting into her octopus form, flopping like a beached fish, reverting back to her Octoling form in mid bounce, and grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed to pelt it at the source of the noise, managing to miss it completely and being rewarded with little more than a solid _fump_ from the plush projectile’s impact with the closet door.

「Confounded ringing device!」 She barked angrily as Casca folded in on himself, alternating between laughing uproariously and coughing into his fist. Her voice pitched higher as her throat constricted from the stress of it all. 「Saltspawned hellbox!」 “Casca, please, make it stop!” She added in Inkling, squeezing her fists so tight they paled as she tried to force her heartbeats back in rhythm again.

Wiping a tear from his eye ( _left, of course_ ) Casca managed to get his breathing under control and half-rolled over to fumble for the alarm clock, wedging two fingers on either side of the hammer to muffle the noise before flipping the switch off and setting it back on the bedside table. Afterwards, he made no attempt to right his posture on the bed, instead taking a moment to extend his other arm upward and stretch his entire body languidly, releasing a pleased sound halfway between a groan and a sigh as he did so and going limp on the bed.

“The timing on that was just too perfect,” he chuckled, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before rolling onto his side and propping his head on his hand, and Eight huffed as she shifted into a seated position on the bed, taking deep, measured breaths with her eyes closed. Casca cleared his throat, and a hand touched her left knee; cracking an eye open, she saw that he’d sat up, and was watching her with a look of concern. “You good?”

Hesitantly, she nodded, releasing the breath she was holding as her tentacles relaxed. “Just… it startled me, that’s all. Didn’t expect it to be that loud.”

He nodded, his lips turning down slightly, almost imperceptibly. “Sorry. I probably should've told you. I always preferred to use the alarm on my phone so I could set it to music, myself. Pretty sure I lost it on the way down into the Metro, though. The fact that my tank and Hero Shot survived was a miracle in itself.” Eight pondered the statement while he climbed off the bed to pick up his jacket from where it sat against the sliding closet door, next to the pillow she’d thrown, and fished his employee-model CQ-80 out of the pocket.

“Speaking of phones, I wonder if this thing even works this far out of the facility,” he muttered, clicking the power button and working the stick with his thumb. No response came from the device, and he shrugged. “Didn’t think it would.”

“The battery may just be dead,” Eight reasoned as he set it on the table beside the alarm clock, looking at her Kamabo ink tank where it leaned against the wall alongside Casca’s much lighter one, and recalling the small internal compartment at the top of the tank, where she'd kept her CQ-80, and where the bag of Mem Cakes and her Kamabo card currently resided. “I'd check mine, but I lost it after you smashed the blender. I was trying to get it to do something when Marina set off the distress signal.”

“Mm.” She looked back at Casca’s wordless response, but he was digging in the closet, eventually surfacing from the cluster of identical slate-grey coats with a strip of thin black cloth, fatter at one end, and making his way to the dresser to fish out a pair of slacks and a tee shirt, the latter of which he set on top of the dresser next to the pants and shirt Marina had loaned her.

Shifting off the bed herself, Eight picked up the shirt, unfolding the shirt to examine it: a black shirt with a pink and white logo resembling an Octoling eye on it, along with the word “TENTATEK” underneath, on either side. Tossing another glance toward Casca and recalling his (cute, though understandable) aversion to nudity, she quickly shucked the white tee she slept in and tugged it on while he was distracted with the slacks. It was definitely a bit loose, and the cut was oddly high in the front and low in the back, but it would do for the time being.

“Looks like the shirt Marina loaned me fits,” she mused, giving it a tug at the collar. She didn't recall Marina being _that_ well endowed, but for whatever reason the shirt seemed cut in such a way as to give plenty of space in the chest, at the cost of fabric mobility in the back. She was beginning to think she might have it on backwards, but there was no tag on the inside, unlike the white tee.

Casca frowned as he buttoned the slacks at his waist, briefly tugging the waistband outward to confirm that, yes, if he so much as hopped in place they'd fall off him. Casting a glance at Eight, he set to using the fabric strip as a makeshift belt. “Your shirt's on backwards,” he confirmed, nodding toward her as he tied the knot. “The little tag on the bottom hem should be on your front left, not the back right.”

As Eight hastily tugged her arms into the shirt to turn it around, Casca picked up his jacket from the floor and fished inside for a moment, extracting the vibrant yellow vest he'd worn over it before, and causing a black fabric object to tumble out of the jacket and onto the floor. “May have lost my phone, but at least I still have my wallet,” he muttered, picking up the fabric package and tossing it onto the dresser. Distractedly, he folded the jacket in half and put it on the bed before picking up the shirt next to it and putting it on.

Wait.

“...wait.” He looked down at the shirt, then at the one on the dresser, then at Eight, and his face turned pink. Immediately, she distracted herself from his predicament by grabbing the jeans off the dresser and putting them on (careful to make sure she didn't make the same mistake as with the shirt). As Marina'd predicted, they were a bit loose on her hips, but not enough to be a problem, assuming she didn't have to do any combat rolls or long distance running.

“...w-well, whatever, I gave you my shirt yesterday anyway,” Casca muttered sheepishly, snatching up his jacket again and stepping out of the bedroom, rounding the corner to pick up the bundle of clothes from just inside the bathroom. He immediately held it at arm's length and made a face. “Whoof. Think I can see what Pearl meant by wharf horf.” Gingerly, he wrapped the bundle in his jacket.

“If you want, you can come with me and I can show you how the laundry machine works, or you can just hang out here at the house,” Casca offered, tucking the lot under his arm. “Your call.”

Eight briefly considered staying, a part of her wanting to go through her Mem Cakes to try and find some answers regarding the memory from last night, but the thought of being alone while going through her memories, with nobody on hand to pull her out of it if she locked up, sent a chill down her back. “I'll come with you,” she said. “I-if that's alright.”

Casca nodded, smiling. “Sounds good to me. Let's go, the machine's not far.”

As they sat on the ledge in the entryway, Eight found the shoes mentioned on the note Marina and Pearl had left them the night before, a pair of black shoes with the same logo as the shirt in black and white on the tongue. The fit was surprisingly snug, she found, and they were infinitely more comfortable than her high-heeled boots had been when she stood up. She found herself bouncing on her heels just to feel the cushioning spring back.

“It feels like I'm walking on a cloud,” she breathed with a smile, spinning around to look at Casca. He had paused in putting his boots on, and was smiling warmly at her, but when their eyes met, he quickly ducked his head and went back to fighting the straps on his boots.

After several seconds of fighting the locking mechanisms on one of the straps, he grumbled a curse under his breath and tossed the boot aside, popping the other boot off as well. “Dipped clasps must've rusted down in the Metro,” he sighed, flashing the offending footwear a gesture that she was pretty sure would be considered rude in polite company. “I could fix it if I had my maintenance kit, but that's at Bayside, not here,” he said after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. With a shrug, he reached over and grabbed Eight's boots. “These'll have to do for now I guess.”

Eight tilted her head as he tucked his feet into her heeled boots and tugged the zippers up before tugging the pants legs down over the tops. “Do they fit you?”

Lifting a be-heeled foot, Casca wiggled it, checking the fit; there didn't seem to be much movement, if any. “Looks like it.” Planting his feet again, he pushed himself to a standing position, wobbling slightly. “Geez, you were fighting in these?” Taking a few unbalanced steps, he finally pried his eyes from the floor to look up at Eight, eyes wide. “Okay, no joke, you're definitely a better fighter than I am if you kicked my ass wearing these. There's like _no_ arch support, or any cushioning at all.”

Eight stifled a chuckle. “You know, I could wear the heels and you can just wear the sneakers for now, right?”

Wobbling back to the ledge, Casca picked up the wad of clothes and shook his head. “Nope, I'm committed now. I'll learn to walk in these if it kills me. Which it might if we have to run, because holy carp.”

—

As it turned out, the laundry room was a part of the main villa building that was accessible both from inside and outside. According to Casca, since Pearl's family ( _the Houzuki clan_ , he'd explained, who had connections all across Inkopolis) were rich enough to employ servants, guests rarely, if ever, had to take care of their own laundry on site. They would either bring enough clothes for the duration of their stay, and simply take what was dirtied back home to handle as normal, or on the few occasions that someone stayed at the villa long enough to need it, the Houzukis' maids would take care of it.

“Me and Pearl, however,” he had explained, slowly getting better once Eight had offered the suggestion to treat it like walking on tip-toe, “We were the only ones staying here during our schooltime, and we didn't really want to bother the maids to do our laundry, so we handled it ourselves. Our parents considered it a good way to teach us responsibility, as well. We kept things clean, including our laundry, as part of the “terms” of our stay here.”

The laundry process turned out to be surprisingly simple, and in short order the two of them were making their way back to the guest house. Not wanting to get into her Mem Cakes just yet since they'd have to stop soon after to transfer the laundry anyway, she left the idea of what to do up to Casca.

Which was how she found herself seated on the couch in the front room, watching Inkling television for the first time.

She was seated on the small brown couch next to Casca, who had tucked his right foot under his left knee as he sat. It was almost intoxicating, how fast things went on the screen. Advertisements in bright colors flashed by, the channel changing with a clean-cut snap every few seconds as Casca searched for something to watch. “Think it's a weekday,” he said flatly. “If it were a weekend there'd be cartoons on. Might be wrong though, I don't watch TV that often.”

“And all of this is just... for informational purposes?” Eight breathed, unable to tear her eyes away. She felt almost entranced.

“Nah. Most of it's advertisement right now. Commercials. “Need a thing? Buy _our_ thing! It's better than the other guys' thing, because we said so!” The companies pay money to have their little blurb shown in between content to influence the likelihood of people buying their product over a competitor's.” Glancing over, Casca nudged her knee with his, and she tore her eyes from the screen. “Don't forget to blink,” he chuckled, and she frowned, nudging him back in protest.

“Oh hey, it's Inkopolis News,” he noted, and Eight's attention snapped back to the screen.

“ _Y'all know what time it is!” “It's Off The Hook, coming at you LIVE from Inkopolis Square!”_

It was strange, seeing Pearl and Marina on the screen. There was a curious sort of stiffness to their interactions compared to how they'd been yesterday that she reasoned was from them following a set script, but they looked confident and comfortable with the environment surrounding them.

“ _HOLD YOUR SEAHORSES, MARINA! We have breaking news!”_ _“Wait, WHAT?!”_

“Guess here's where they have to talk about the NILS, huh,” Casca mused.

“ _The Great Zapfish is back? THE GREAT ZAPFISH IS BACK! AW YEAH!”_ Pearl cheered, and the screen switched to a view of the massive creature wrapped around Inkopolis Tower, providing power for the whole of Inkopolis.

“Back?” Casca sat forward, frowning as he unfolded his legs to place both feet on the floor. “So it disappeared again? The Cap'n didn't mention anything...”

Eight tilted her head. “The Secret Zapfish War, that was when you became an Agent, right?” she asked, and Casca nodded. “Octavio stole the Great Zapfish along with a bunch of regular ones, so I was brought on to get them back, and I did. But that was two years ago.”

“ _Anyway, in other news, here are the current Regular Battle sta— WAIT! Shut it, Marina! We've got another breaking news alert!” “But I didn't say anythi—“ “HOLY CARP! Callie's been found! Are you guys seeing this? Now THAT'S news!”_

“She was _missing!?_ ” Casca practically yelled as he dropped the remote, and Eight shrunk away from him, startled by the outburst. “Why the hell—when did—“ In seconds, he was up and pacing around, the newscast forgotten. “No. This isn't a coincidence, it can't be. No, no, if they were _just_ found, it had to've happened when we were in the Metro,” he rambled, gesturing blindly. “My phone was lost even if I _could_ get signal, the Cap'n and I were both down there, there was no way they'd be able to get ahold of us if anything happened. Marie would've had to go after Octavio alone.” He stomped his foot, a dull _spump_ on the tiled floor, his pacing having taken him all the way off the front room carpet. “ _Dammit._ The rusted kettle must've been some kind of trap, a way to get me out of the picture so they could free Octavio, and I walked right into it!”

Watching him walk in circles, Eight felt a knot of dread form in her stomach. Casca's monologue quickly devolved into mumbling to himself, pacing in circles so fast she was getting dizzy watching him, and his hands would occasionally shoot out to one side or another, punctuated by a syllable louder than the rest of his mumbling. She managed to catch only a few words ( _disconnected, too old, capitalized, collapse, maintenance_ ) before realizing that Casca wasn't just ranting, but carrying on a full conversation with himself—or rather, Casca had lost himself in a heated discussion with Agent Three.

“Casca...” she said softly, trying to get his attention. “Casca, please,” she said a little louder, and when that didn't work, she screwed up her courage, stood up and grabbed his shoulders just before he turned away again. _“Casca.”_

He froze, mid-ramble, lifting his head to look at her, and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “I... sorry,” he breathed, and flopped onto the couch, dropping his head into his hands. “I just...” he huffed, and sat back, leaning against the back of the sofa, head back with his eyes closed, as Eight sat next to him, hesitantly. “When the Cap'n first took me in, it was to help deal with smaller disappearances. Zapfish going missing from construction sites, stuff like that, that he attributed to the Octarians, but nobody else wanted to believe it. Less than a week later, the Great Zapfish went missing, and then two weeks after I became an Agent, Octavio kidnapped the Cap'n.

“I thought he was dead, for a while, but then Agent One and Agent Two showed up. Callie and Marie. They took over doing what the Cap'n did, helped pick up signals and track the Octarians, and even found out that the Cap'n was alive, according to intercepted transmissions. And then, a month later, Octavio called me out personally. _By name._ ” Casca opened his eyes again, but they were distant, unfocused. “Challenged me to a winner-take-all, one-on-one battle. I accepted. He gave me coordinates, I went, there was an arena, and we battled in front of an audience full of Octarians and Octolings.”

“Marina was in the audience there,” Eight mentioned. “The Cap'n showed Pearl and I the dossier he had on her.” “When did he...?” He muttered, looking over at her. “Pearl and Marina used a chat program to talk with the Cap'n while I was running tests,” she explained. “Marina hacked my CQ-80 somehow to display saved logs from the chat room. At one point when Marina wasn't on, Pearl mentioned something that reminded the Cap'n of Octarian technology, and he dug up a dossier file on her and posted it to the chat.”

“Huh,” Casca blinked. “So she's a former soldier?”

Eight nodded. “She was an engineer, and worked for DJ Octavio, I think. I remember the dossier mentioning she disappeared after hearing the Calamari Inkantation. The Cap'n even said the song has some kind of power. I was apparently humming it in my sleep when he found me.”

Casca shook his head, a frown pinching his brow. “I'll have to talk to him about that, this is the first I've heard of it. Anyway, while I fought Octavio, Callie and Marie worked on hacking into the arena's security systems to make sure Octavio wouldn't pull anything if he was losing, and while they were at it switched the music from whatever Octavio was playing to the Inkantation. I won, we captured Octavio, and we got out of there.” Casca let his head fall against the back of the couch again. “In the few weeks I'd known him, Cap'n Cuttlefish was the closest thing to a proper father I'd had in a long time. My parents were distant at best, once I was in school. One of the reasons I ran away six years ago. So when I found out he was alive... I didn't stop fighting until I knew he was safe. And Callie and Marie saw that.” A small smile formed on his lips, and his eyes softened.

“Those two became like sisters to me. Like actual family. Even if my family name is Gladius, I'm basically a Cuttlefish as far as the three of them are concerned. So to hear Callie disappeared—not just rarely seen, but gone completely—at the same time as the Great Zapfish...” His left hand came up to rub his forehead before coming down to pinch the bridge of his nose, right over the line of his mask. “I can almost guarantee that means Octavio got let out, and whoever did it took Callie with them. Which means Marie had to work alone. Nobody running intel, nobody on hand to back her up, nobody to pull her out of a jam or tell her to stop and rest if she was overworking herself...”

“Well, they should be okay now, right?” Eight reasoned, scooting a little closer to set a hand on Casca's knee in an attempt at a comforting gesture. “Pearl and Marina would've said something on the news if Callie was injured. When we go out later, maybe we can stop by and you can check up on them.”

Casca nodded, eyes distant for a moment. “Yeah... yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Besides, you'll need to meet them eventually, and right now the only way the Cap'n can get ahold of us is through Pearl and Marina, so if anything came up, they'd tell Jackie to come take us straight there.” He nodded again, decisively, and put his hand on top of Eight's, looking at her with a smile. “Thanks, Eight. Almost got too deep in my own head there.”

Eight smiled back, and he leaned over to pick up the remote off the floor, turning his attention back to the screen. “Looks like we missed the rest of the news,” he said. An advertisement for some company called GrizzCo was on the screen. Shaking his head, Casca went back to flipping through the channels. “Let's see if we can't find anything interesting to watch.”

As they settled in for what would turn out to be a mostly fruitless endeavor, Eight didn't miss that Casca's hand only moved enough to change from simply resting on hers to holding it.

—

The morning went on with little else occurring, though Casca got in a few more minutes of basic walking-in-heels training during the trip to the laundry room, to Eight's continued amusement—though she did finally get him to agree to wear the sneakers when their ride arrived, at least until they got to his apartment—and they managed to find a show that appeared to be geared towards children that, according to Casca, was a reboot of a show he and Pearl had grown up watching, in which two Inkling brothers, an urchin information specialist, a jellyfish pilot, and an Octoling technician traveled the world solving problems in the animal kingdom by transforming the Inklings into strange animal-Inkling hybrids through the use of special suits. “I grew up watching _The Splatt Brothers_ ,” he'd chuckled. “Although the old show had four Inklings and the technician was a horseshoe crab. The remake seems pretty good so far.”

By the time the show was over, the laundry was done, and Casca left Eight to flick through the channels while he went to get it. Not long after, there was a knock on the door.

“Knock knock, anybody home?” called a familiar feminine voice as Eight turned off the television, and she came to the entryway to see Jackie, dressed in a formal white button-down rolled to the elbows, black vest and slacks, and holding a brown bag with a cheerful logo on it in one hand and a cluster of three brightly colored cups on some kind of cupholder in the other. Now that she could get a better look at her, Eight realized that the splotchy pattern of much lighter skin that even extended into her violet tentacles, which were shorn almost down to nothing on the right side of her head and hung short and loose on the left like a half-veil, extended down the side of her neck, and even covered parts of her forearms and hands. Eight couldn't help but wonder if the otherworldly markings covered her entire body, or just what was exposed, and how she got them, even as she swallowed the urge to ask about it.

“Oh! Hey there! Eight, was it?” She chirped cheerfully, expertly toeing out of her black loafers to reveal simple black socks as she stepped onto the entryway ledge and shuffled past Eight toward the kitchen. “Where's Casca? Figured I'd get you kids something to eat before we head out on the town.”

Eight watched her go, then glanced back toward the door, silently willing Casca to return quicker. Even if Jackie seemed like a cheerful and friendly person, she was still a little put off by being around a relative stranger, her hands quickly winding together at her waist. “Laundry,” she managed, looking back to Jackie and tilting her head in the vague direction of the main villa.

“Ah, right, I remember Pearl mentioning y'all didn't have much to wear. You look good in that, though, the logo brings out the color of your hair real nice,” Jackie said with a smile. “Come have a seat and a bite, I'm sure he won't mind if you start without him.”

Before Eight could decide on a course of action, however, the door opened. “Think I'm finally getting the hang of these heels,” Casca announced as he came in, pausing as he noticed Eight standing just past the entryway as she turned to look at him, a wave of relief spreading through her as she did so. He was dressed in his uniform shorts again, and his jacket was back on, while over his arm was hung the slacks he'd been wearing, the length of fabric, and his Callie tee; he'd even found an elastic somewhere, and had tied his tentacles back into their usual “tail” behind his head. His eyes hardened briefly at Eight's concerned posture. “What's up?”

“What's that about heels, Cass?” Jackie stepped back into the main throughway to get a look at him, and laughed. “Looking good,” she crowed, and a blush crept over his face as he calmed, but he struck a pose anyway, before turning around and striking another pose. “I hear they make your legs look good, so I figured I'd try them out myself,” he chuckled, and Eight's eyes were drawn downward. He wasn't wrong.

Unzipping the boots, he set them aside and stepped up into the entryway. “It's good to see you again, Jackie,” he said warmly, and Jackie smiled, leaning in to give him a hug. “Likewise, Casca. We were all real worried when you disappeared six years ago. You should've said something.”

“I know, I know,” he sighed, giving her an extra tight squeeze before letting go. “I just... mom and dad straight up told me to never associate with Pearl again, and when I asked why, dad started going off about her _ruining her family's good name_ , and I blew up at them halfway through and went to my room. Eight hours later I packed a bunch of clothes in a bag and started walking.” He hung his jacket on the coat hook next to his cloak, and started down the hallway. “Next morning I went to the bank as soon as it opened, withdrew everything in my account and closed it, and started hitchhiking to Inkopolis. Didn't even have my phone.”

Jackie tutted as Casca tossed the bundle of clothes into the bedroom and came back. “You never were much of a planner, were you.” It didn't sound like a question, and he didn't exactly respond to it, beyond a shrug and a nod. “Well, you're back, and that's what matters. Now come eat breakfast so we can get this show on the road.”

In short order, the three of them were seated around the dining room table, and Jackie quickly divvied out the contents of the paper bag, revealing something warm wrapped in paper and a paper pouch with two warm round discs in it. “Didn't know what drink to get you, so you both get Tentacola, hope you don't mind,” she added as she set the cups in front of them.

Hesitantly mirroring Casca, Eight unwrapped the package to reveal a different kind of sandwich from the ones last night, taller, made of a flaky golden-brown crust in a shape reminiscent of a nautilus shell, and containing a fat square of something golden yellow atop a disc of dark brown, with a slice of cheese (she recalled that from the other sandwiches) melted between the bun and the yellow square. It felt somewhat greasy in her hands, but the smell was absolutely amazing, and seeing Casca's face light up on seeing his own, it was apparently something extremely good. Hesitantly, she took a bite as Jackie laid out a stack of napkins.

The explosion of flavor was not at all like she was expecting. Salty, yet somehow slightly sweet, with a flaky texture to the bread that she'd never experienced, and a hint of spice to the meat. Eight felt like she could eat her weight in whatever these were, but mindful of her coughing fit the night before and recalling the implications of Marina and Pearl's discussion of the _burger_ (whatever that was) Eight held back the urge to cram as much as she could in her mouth.

Casca, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine taking bites that severed entire quarters of his sandwich. “Haven't had MacHero's in a month,” he said happily in between bites, and sipped his cola appreciatively. “Thanks for the breakfast, Jackie.”

“No problem, kiddo,” she said with a smile, pausing before she took another, more normal, bite to cast a glance at Eight. “So what'cha think?”

Her mouth too full to respond, Eight gave her a wide-eyed smile, managing an appreciative “mm-hmm!”, to which Jackie chuckled. “Yeah, hoped you'd enjoy it. Pearl didn't tell me much about you, but she said wherever you'd been before, you were basically livin' off vending machine bars and bottled water. Your first full day in Inkopolis, you gotta have some proper Inkopolis fare, yeah?” Turning her gaze to Casca, she nodded at him. “And you absolutely have to make sure she gets a taste of Crusty Sean's cooking, y'hear?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot he's running a food cart now,” Casca mused, licking grease from his fingertips and wadding up the wrapper. Eight hadn't even seen him finish his sandwich. “Never got the chance to go try it, myself, I was always too busy with work.” He tugged one of the brown discs out of the pouch, cramming the whole thing in his mouth at once.

“What exactly is it that you do, anyway?” Jackie asked, and Casca frowned, chewing pensively. After a sip of cola, he spoke. “I can't tell you much, but since Pearl and Marina helped out so much, you're bound to hear about it sooner or later,” he said at length. “I'm something of a... an investigator, a peacekeeper.”

“Wait, so, like, police stuff? Or private investigators?” “More the latter,” Casca responded, as Eight finished her last bite of sandwich and plucked a napkin from the stack to clean the grease from her fingers. “But most of what we work on has to do with public safety, so we do work with the police on occasion. When certain things come up to the ITDF, we go out and solve them.”

“Huh. Never woulda figured you for the paramilitary type,” Jackie mused, sipping her cola. “Not to be rude or anything, but you weren't much of a fighter.” Eight blinked.

“Yeah, no, you're right, I wasn't,” Casca chuckled, sitting back in his chair. “Still kinda not, but I've been doing it for two years now. I kinda just go on instinct when I'm working and leave the thinking to the rest of the team. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I make a decent hammer, so to speak.” Absently, his thumb traced the scar on his jaw that Eight had been examining when she woke up. “I'm pretty good at it, but sometimes they have to tell me to stop working before I end up unconscious on the ground. I tend to ignore pain, thus the whole, y'know, professional urchin wrestler look.”

“I see. And what does your new girlfriend do, may I ask?” Jackie gestured nonchalantly at Eight, and Casca's face turned pink as he gave her a look that Eight couldn't quite read. “My last job involved a rusted kettle a construction company found on Mount Nantai,” he said after a moment. “It took me on a one-way trip to a facility where the Cap'n and I found Eight. She had no memory of where she was from, and had to complete a series of tests in the facility to “earn” the right to travel to the surface. I can't elaborate on what all happened, but she regained some of her memories while she was down there, and Pearl and Marina provided intel for us after finding a radio I dropped on the surface, Eight completed the tests, and Pearl and Marina gave us a lift home.”

Eight sipped her cola in silence, trying to mitigate the sour feeling she had. From the way Casca was telling things, she got the feeling that he didn't want to let on that he'd spent most of his time down there alone, and she couldn't blame him. Distracting herself from it, she resumed eating the discs.

“So your boss was that old man y'all were talking to outside Deca Tower?” Jackie asked, and Casca nodded. “He used to be a soldier back in the Great Turf War. Captain Craig Cuttlefish, former Second Lieutenant of Squidbeak Splatoon.”

Jackie let out a low whistle. “I remember reading about him in the history books. Isn't he related to the Squid Sisters?”

“Yep. I worked construction for a while, but I bumped into him at the right time while looking for something to do one day, and he asked me if I was looking for work. Didn't care for the roofing company I was working with, so I said sure, if he was hiring, and that was that.” Casca gathered the trash from their meals, stuffing it into the bag and toting it to the trash can. “Since the tests Eight was doing in that facility involved a bunch of stuff like what I already do, the Cap'n more or less hired her on the spot. He'd been calling her Agent Eight, 'cause it was easier than “Test subject ten-thousand-and-eight”, which was the only identifier we found her with on an anklet she was wearing.”

“I... still haven't remembered my real name, either,” Eight said at length, drawing Jackie's attention. “But Pearl and Marina started just calling me “Eight” while I was down there, so for now that's what I go by.”

“I'm so sorry,” Jackie said softly, and reached across the table to give Eight's hand a gentle squeeze. “Well, if there's anything I can do to help, you just say the word. I know Pearl's taken a shine to you, and if Casca's helping you you're definitely gonna be safe, but anything you need of me, don't hesitate to ask.” Eight smiled at that.

“But! There are only so many hours in the day, and we've got shopping and moving to do, so you two get yourselves cleaned up. Pearl handed me a credit card and said it was _specifically_ for filling out your wardrobe, Eight, so you don't have to worry about how much anything will cost, but we're going to have to pick up Casca's stuff from Bayside first, 'cause we only have so much time in the day. Hop to.” And with that, Jackie stood, grabbed her drink off the table, and headed for the entryway, jingling a set of keys over her shoulder with her other hand. “I'll have the motor running, so don't take too long, kids.”

—

In no time, they were off to the city, Eight watching the world go by through the tinted window while Jackie filled Casca in on some of the goings-on of the past six years. Pearl had formed a metal band roughly four years back, met Marina while out on Mount Nantai practicing for a concert, and roughly a year later had a falling out with the band when she broke up with the drummer; Pearl ditched the metal scene to work with Marina, and they formed Off The Hook, gaining some traction but largely getting nowhere until half a year ago, when _Ebb and Flow_ went platinum on the charts; Jackie had finally popped the question to her boyfriend around the same time (there she waved her left hand where the two could see the gold band on the ring finger, and Casca gave her a heartfelt congratulations at that); and things had been pretty peachy since then, all things considered.

“And how're the rest of the Houzukis doing?” Casca asked after a lengthy silence, and Jackie shrugged. “Not sure. Two years ago I formally quit driving for the whole family when Pearl offered me a contract with her father's blessing, so I've been her personal driver and something of a personal assistant ever since. Well, her and Marina's, really, since those two are just about attached at the hip.” She sighed with a wistful smile. “Reminds me of me and Madeline, back in the day. Anyway, far as I know, they're doing fine. Haven't heard anything about any injuries or illnesses from Pearl. Ol' Ferdy's living out his days in a townhouse in the countryside, one of his former vacation homes, as I recall. Helaine and Roderick gave him a decent severance package when they got the Board of Directors to oust him from the CEO position at Aurion. As I heard it, they also disinvited him from any family or company events unless he was willing to apologize to Pearl.”

Casca snorted, shaking his head. “Yeah, that isn't happening,” he muttered.

“Exactly what I said. Alright, looks like we're here,” she announced as the car slowed to a stop. The area was far different from the parts of Inkopolis Eight had seen before. The buildings seemed designed to fit as much into as little space as possible, and she got a closed-in vibe not unlike the central terminal in the Metro gave her. They'd parked in front of a blue building, a faded sign on the front proclaiming it to be _Bayside Apartments_.

Climbing out of the car, Casca stretched, planting his palms in the small of his back with a grunt. “This shouldn't take long, I'm just going to grab a bunch of personal stuff and leave the rest. Not like I need the furniture or anything. You can come along if you want, Eight, or you can stay with Jackie.”

Eight contemplated a moment before nodding. “I'll come with you in case there's too much to carry,” she suggested, and together they headed into the building.

The inside didn't seem much better off than the outside. The entrance was dimly lit, more of a closed stairwell than anything, a lifeless gray space with a row of rusty lockers against one wall. One of the lockers was stuffed almost to bursting, and Casca pulled out his wallet, extracting a key from the inner lining and using it to open the one beside it. “Huh. No mail. Lucky.” Shrugging, he closed the box and headed up the stairs, Eight tagging along behind. “To be honest, I'm kinda glad you came along. Like I said, I'm not bringing back a lot, just my guitar, laptop, tools, and my clothes, but it'd definitely be more than one trip by myself, and the apartment's on the third floor.”

“You have a guitar?” Eight asked. “Yeah. When I was younger I wanted to learn, but my parents wouldn't let me have one. First thing I bought once I had my own apartment. I don't know much, just a few basic chords, and I don't even have an amp for it, but it's nice to pluck away at when I'm feeling down.” As he reached the top of the stairs, he froze. Down the hall, a door labeled _308_ was open, and against the wall across from it was a black plastic bag, a large plastic toolbox, and an old blue electric guitar, scratched and worn.

Casca immediately broke into a run, with Eight following close behind, concern building at the sudden shift in his demeanor. As he reached the door, another bag came flying out of the room with a wet _thud_ , thumping into the guitar and knocking it over. “Hey, hey, watch the guitar!” He yelled, rounding the door to storm into the apartment.

“Who in the—Casca, perfect timing!” a phlegmy, deep voice crowed, and as Pearl rounded the door herself, she saw it belonged to a squat, square Inkling with a bristle of what appeared to be shredded green tentacles to either side of his otherwise fleshtoned head, and beady orange eyes. “Gimme yer key and clean your shit out. You're evicted.”

“Evicted? I paid up last month, Daren,” Casca protested. “Yeah, and you missed payday five days back 'cause you been gone for two weeks without so much as a hello. Yer problem, not mine, I got three other places to clear out today.” Daren held out his hand. “Key. Now. 'Fore I call the cops on ya.”

Sighing, Casca dropped the key into the outstretched hand. “Fine, take it, you fucking sponge,” he spat. His jaw twitched, like he wanted to say more, but he held back.

“ _Thank_ you for being _reasonable_ ,” Daren smarmed. Turning to Eight, he smiled, and she instinctively shrank away slightly, tentacles pulling inward as he openly ogled her. “Well ain't you a looker. You can help yer boyfriend here clear out.” He promptly shouldered past Eight to putter down the hall, calling back over his shoulder. “Have yer shit cleared out within the hour, kid. Anything left's goin' in the dumpster, and I'm chargin' a fee.” And with that, he disappeared down the stairwell.

Eight looked back toward Casca, who gave her a wan smile. “Well, not like we weren't here to do exactly that,” he said humorlessly. “ _Charging a fee,_ like I don't remember that you only take cash, you grimy fish,” he added under his breath as he turned around to walk further into the apartment, and Eight followed.

The apartment wasn't particularly large, with an open-plan kitchen and “den” the size of the guest house's front room, and two doors on the wall leading to a small bedroom roughly the size of the villa's laundry room, with a bathroom just large enough to fit a bathtub with a showerhead and a curtain, a sink, and a toilet. The walls were the same bland grey as the rest of the building, with various holes spackled over haphazardly, and the floor was covered in yellowed linoleum like the hallway, where there wasn't musty offwhite carpet. Eight was beginning to see why Pearl had insisted that they live with her instead of coming here, and was silently thankful that Casca had agreed.

“Honestly, the first thing I had planned to do was look into finding a better place for us,” Casca said, as if reading her thoughts, digging a dusty duffel bag from under his bed and haphazardly cramming clothes from his closet into it without much heed for order. “I was already saving up money to do just that. After I became an Agent and brought back the Great Zapfish, the Cap'n was able to get the ITDF to formally recognize New Squidbeak Splatoon as an independent security contractor for our efforts, and that meant we get a paycheck as Agents. The paycheck I'll be getting from the Nantai job would give me just enough money to get a decent apartment somewhere else for the better part of a year.”

Eight tilted her head, examining the threadbare bedsheets, and Casca relocated to a squat wooden table with a pair of large drawers that she realized, as he dug out a haphazard wad of socks and boxers from the smaller drawer, was his “dresser”. “ITDF?”

“Inkling Turf Defense Force, the military institution that was formed to fight the Great Turf War. Afterwards, they've served as the Ika nation's civilian-run defense against threats to society, though really they're just a handful of people that hold authority to pay out contract work to police and paramilitary groups like New Squidbeak.” Shoving what looked like four pairs of shorts nearly identical to the ones he was wearing into the duffel, Casca zipped it shut, stood, hauled it onto his right shoulder, and picked up a shoulder bag that sat against the wall to sling over his left. “Technically, you and me have more national security clearance than the cops Jaren was threatening to call, since New Squidbeak is contracted for military matters instead of civilian, but when someone breaks the law, we don't have any authority there. They keep the peace _in_ society, we fight anything that _threatens_ society. Grab that guitar case, could you please?”

Eight jumped as she realized the last sentence was a request, and spun around to find the case in question, a soft guitar-shaped bag leaned against the wall. “R-right.” Taking it, she followed him back out to the hall, where he set down the duffel, and handed him the case. “The two biggest companies contracted out by the ITDF as it stands are GrizzCo, who are contracted to defend against Salmonid invasions, and...” He paused in the act of putting the guitar in the case, scrunching his nose. It was adorably similar to Pearl's “I'm thinking of something” face, Eight realized. “You know, I don't think I know the name of the other company. The cops, basically. It's the company that runs the Inkopolis police department. They're more or less the national police.”

Zipping up the guitar case, he turned his attention to the two trash bags. While one contained what he surmised to be the expired contents of his fridge and cupboard, the other, which was significantly taller, turned out to be his entire laundry basket standing on its side, empty, and two pairs of ratty gray trainers that might've been white once, the both of which looked like they were a dozen steps short of coming apart at the seams.

“...guess I need to do some shoe shopping myself today,” he grumbled, and Eight suppressed a giggle. “I wore these the whole time I was in the Metro,” she said, tapping her heel on the worn down linoleum. “I can go a few more hours with them.”

Nodding, Casca tied the bag with his basket in it again and picked up the duffel and his guitar. “I guess, then, if you'll get the tools, that's everything. ...I never realized how little I actually owned until now,” he added in a mumble as Eight picked up the toolbox. It wasn't as heavy as she expected, despite being as big as her torso, and she overcompensated, nearly unbalancing herself as she stood up. A sheepish glance told her Casca hadn't noticed, mulling over his minimalist lifestyle.

As they made their way back down the stairs, Eight lost herself briefly in thought. She understood most Inkling on an academic level (even if she couldn't recall exactly _how_ or _why_ ) though some phrases occasionally eluded her, like _altogether_ did; but a particular phrase seemed to be coming up a lot, and she wasn't quite sure what it meant. Jackie had called her Casca's “girlfriend”—twice, now that she thought about it, though it slipped her mind the first time due to panic—and now that Daren guy called Casca her “boyfriend”.

She understood “friend” easily enough, but there seemed to be an extra distinction put on the gender-specific variants. Casca had even congratulated Jackie on “proposing to her boyfriend”. She wasn't quite sure what kind of proposition it'd been, but it was apparently important enough to warrant a special ring. She couldn't think of anything in her hazy recollection of Octarian society that seemed to match the concept, though whether that was because there was none, or because she didn't have those memories, she couldn't say.

As often as she'd been asking questions, however, Eight didn't quite want to ask about this one. She was relying on others too much for explanations already, she reasoned to herself, and Casca didn't seem particularly put out by the use of the term, even if he did give Jackie a rather odd look when she'd used it the second time. She resolved to try and figure it out on her own.

As they loaded Casca's belongings into the trunk, Jackie came around the side. “ _Please_ tell me that sleazeball that whistled at me when he left the building was a tenant,” she said flatly.

“Landlord,” Casca grunted as he scooted the toolkit to the back of the trunk, and Jackie made a disgusted noise. “Yeah, no, if you'd'a said you two were gonna stay here, I would've dragged Eight back to _my_ place after seeing that guy.”

Eight's hands reflexively went to her shoulders, and she nodded. “And I wouldn't have fought you,” she said softly, and Jackie shook out another _eugh_ as Casca closed the trunk.

“Wait, that's all you've got?” She said after a moment, giving Casca a probing look, and he nodded, shrugging his shoulders. “Laptop, clothes, guitar, tools. Was saving up money for a new place before all this happened, so I don't have much.”

“Shells, Casca, you really _haven't_ changed,” Jackie sighed, shaking her head, and opened the driver's door. “Alright. Load up, pups. Next stop, Arowana Mall.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Backstory! Names! Timelines! *throws confetti* _**WORLDBUILDING!**_  
>  Now you see why I wrote friggin' 10k in a single chapter, eh? But I'm applying that as a hard upper limit from here out. Not everyone is a voracious reader that will burn through a forty chapter epic in two sittings, after all.
> 
> For those wondering, Casca's family name (and his angular Roman shnoz, because I hadn't actually nailed down his facial features prior to this chapter other than the Tartar mark) comes from the realization that my method of "type some letters until it looks good" for naming Casca spat out an actual name, that of a Roman senator who participated in the assassination of Julius Caesar, and later finding that "gladius" is also the name for a body part found in certain breeds of squid that is not unlike a cuttlebone. Since The Cap'n is named for the cuttle _fish_ which is so called for the cuttle _bone_ I thought it a fitting name. While not noted here, Marcus (mentioned as a member of Pearl's old friend group in the second chapter) is also a Gladius, more specifically Casca's cousin. (For a little while, I was gonna make them brothers, but it left too many potential plot holes for my taste.)
> 
> I was debating with myself whether to follow my planned POV-shifting and have the next chapter be through Casca's head since I wanted to follow Eight's viewpoint of a handful of specific events, but a last-minute reorganization of plot tilted things in Casca's favor, so look forward to more from Mr. Runaway Internal Monologue coming soon.
> 
> (Sidebar: writing two different styles to try and delineate two different characters' POVs is _hard_.)
> 
> Up next on Whispers in the Dark: An anxious Octoling and a crowded mall. What could _paws_ ibly go wrong?  
> (my apologies to Bubsy the Cat)


End file.
